Volt
by Hoppiholla
Summary: When Leah Smith broke into a SHIELD facility to steal files, she knew she'd get their attention. What she didn't know was that Nick Fury would want her to JOIN them, much less become a part of a secret initiative gathering the most powerful people around. Leah has power, she knows that much-but what exactly could a girl who controls lightning bring to the table?
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, it's Hoppiholla. So glad to be back :D Just...bear with me here. New story, Avengers fandom (sorry ME fans), OCs are involved, longer note at the bottom...? All will be explained!**

**(and yes, the cover art is mine, if you have questions about it, PM me :D)**

* * *

She was not having a good day.

First off, and most pressingly, she was being chased by a large number of people with guns. That was never a good thing. Second, she was fairly certain she knew _why _they were chasing her, and that it had something to do with the flash drive clutched tightly in her right fist. The flash drive that currently held very sensitive files, that she had risked life and limb to get. And that meant she wouldn't be giving up any time soon, and she had the sneaking suspicion the suit-clad SHIELD agents after her wouldn't either. Third, the plan that she had carefully concocted over the past weeks had gone wrong in numerous places, which only served to piss her off. There was absolutely no reason why the security systems should have been upgraded literally an hour before she set her plans into motion, and even less cause for a sudden increase in the number of guards around the particular server she needed to access. For God's sake, they had almost _doubled _the amount of people-she hadn't been _nearly _that obvious in her recon, right?

However, obviousness aside, she _really _needed to get out of here. Now.

Keeping her hand clenched around the flash drive, she skidded around a corner and came face-to-face with a pair of massive steel doors. The wall to the left was covered in buttons and dials and scans that she didn't have the key to. She snarled under her breath-she hadn't originally planned on getting out this way, and she didn't have time to hack through. The shouts behind her were far away enough. She ripped the covering off of the panel, exposing the wires and circuitry. She took a deep breath, hesitated for the space of a second, and then she rammed her hand into the wiring.

Lightning arced around her fingers and raced over the mess of wires. A crackling noise filled the air, and a few moments later, the door groaned, opening a few inches, almost reluctantly. She kept her hand planted on the panel for a few moments longer, her teeth gritted as she _demanded _the door open. There was a loud _crack, _and the door rushed open. She shook her hand out, checking nervously behind her, and sighing in relief when she saw that no one was watching her. Sure, there was security footage that would show _lightning _coming from her hands, but they wouldn't see it for a while yet, and by then, she would be long gone.

She absolutely, positively was _not _going to end up in the custody of SHIELD as some kind of lab rat. Even if she had stolen their files.

Another crack sounded, and she threw herself through the door, releasing the wires and barely getting herself through before it shut with a clang. There was a sound of impact as a bullet hit the door on the other side, and she took off, sprinting down the hallway for all she was worth. She was almost out, and once she got off the compound, she could disappear. She rounded a corner, putting on an extra burst of speed as the exterior doors came into sight...

"_Stop!"_

She would have snorted if she wasn't so out of breath. Like that would stop her. Really, they ought to focus on, you know, doing something _worthwhile. _Something that might _actually _stop her. Actually, that was a little worrying-SHIELD wasn't stupid, and at last count, there were only four agents chasing after her. That didn't seem like nearly enough, even if she was being modest. And they hadn't caught her yet. She thought that SHIELD agents were the best of the best, and they weren't fast enough? And where was everyone else?

She had already thrown the doors open when her eyes widened in understanding. She dug her heels in to stop her trajectory, but she skidded into the parking lot anyway.

_Shit._

The parking lot was bright enough that it might as well have been noon, floodlights trained directly on the doors. The doors were surrounded, agents in black suits with pistols aimed straight at her forehead. At least one helicopter hovered over the scene, guns pointed straight at her. She lifted an eyebrow at that-she was flattered that they thought they needed a helicopter to deal with her, but it would make getting out of this a whole lot harder.

"Put your hands up!"

Her chest heaved as she sighed. Innocently, she raised her hands to either side of her head. Scanning the area around her briefly, she smirked as she spotted a pipe running up the wall on her left. Perfect. She had really hoped to get out of here without showing off her...ability, but it seemed to be unavoidable now. Oh well.

Without warning, her arms lashed out to the side, palms out. Twin bolts of lightning cracked across the space, and she dropped almost instantly into a squat, one leg straight out in front of her. Pushing off, she spun in a circle, lightning following her hands like whips, lashing anyone in their path and blinding the rest. Separate bolts hit the helicopter above her, eliciting frightened yells from the pilot as it listed severely to the left. Bullets hit the space where she had been a second ago like rain, but she was already gone. She scrambled up the pipe and onto the roof of the SHIELD building, sprinting flat-out across the asphalt. She could hear shouting behind her, but she had made sure there wouldn't be any quick pursuit. She reached the edge of the roof in seconds and leaped. She hit the ground rolling, springing to her feet and fleeing as fast as she could.

Yeah. She had been a lab rat once before, she was never going back to that place again.

SHIELD could kiss her ass.

* * *

Nick Fury was going to kill someone. Just with the pure force of his rage. "Can someone explain to me _why _there was a successful break-in at a secure facility?"

The junior agents in front of him shuffled a bit.

"Perhaps why an unknown entity was able to acquire sensitive files with absolutely _no help_?"

No one answered.

"Then at least tell me why this..._girl _did not only successfully make complete copies of said files, but managed to escape a collection of almost thirty agents, their vehicles and a goddamned _helicopter_?"

There was a round of throat-clearing and looking at the floor while Director Fury fixed his one-eyed glare on those nearest him. This was inexcusable. Almost thirty agents, and _one _person had managed to get the jump on _all _of them? That he found a little hard to believe.

Fury had problems of his own to deal with. He had a super soldier he needed to introduce to the modern world, a space cube that was acting out, and the skin around his eye was itching. Whenever that happened, it usually meant very bad things were about to happen. Fury was not a superstitious man, but really, right now he would take any warning he could get.

"Sir, that wasn't a normal girl."Fury looked in annoyed surprise at the agent who now flinched and stared at the ground. She looked to be young, and this had probably been her first assignment. Usually all he got from agents he dealt with directly was 'yes sir, no sir' and zero eye contact. Especially with junior agents.

"What exactly do you mean by that, agent?" Fury requested politely. Usually when he was being polite, it wasn't a good agent winced, but stood up straight and eventually looked him in the eye.

"With all due respect, sir, a normal girl can't outrun senior SHIELD agents any more than she can throw lightning from her hands."

If Fury was surprised, he didn't show it. "I'm gonna have to ask you to explain that one, agent," he said calmly. The agent bit her lip, but opened her mouth to speak. At that precise moment, Agent Phil Coulson entered the room. The suited man was something of an unholy deity amongst the junior agents-most of them firmly believed he was an android, or some Frankenstein's creature. In the past, Fury had used that to his advantage. Coulson was a good agent, and really, that was something that was getting harder and harder to find.

Coulson nodded to the assembled agents and leaned in to Fury's ear, and the junior Fury was interrogating heaved a visible sigh of relief.

"Sir, there's something you need to see. Related to the most recent break-in."

"Could this possibly have anything to do with, what was it? Lightning? From someone's hands?" Fury said pointedly, glaring at the junior agent, who turned an interesting shade of red.

"Yes, sir," she said sheepishly, staring fixedly at the ground. To his surprise, Coulson's eyebrows merely raised. "I was informed you hadn't seen the security footage yet, but if you have, we can discuss-"

"Wait. _What?_**" **Fury asked, clashing eyebrows the only allowance to his shock. He had assumed that the agent was making it up, telling a story to cover her own ass, but this was...unprecedented.

Coulson's lips lifted in the barest hint of a smile. "You'll see." With a few flicks of his fingertips, a screen lit up on one of the walls, the lights dimming automatically. He sat down in a desk chair, but Fury's glare pinned the agents that had started to shuffle to the door where they were.

"Agent!" he called as the junior agents not-so-unobtrusively shimmied their way to the opposite end of the room to watch. The junior girl who had spoken up turned around, along with some others, but noticed him looking straight at her. She put a finger to her chest and he nodded sarcastically. She came to stand in front of him, trembling slightly, but with her feet planted firmly and her chin up. Fury decided he liked her. He ran a quick mental check over the agents assigned to the violated facility, and remembered her name.

"Agent Greene, if you could, perhaps, come over here? Since you were so eager to have me see this footage in the first place?"Greene flinched again, but inclined her head, turning to watch the screen, her entire body tense. Fury rolled his eyes internally at the stoic front, but turned his eyes as well.

Coulson's finger tapped a switch, and the screen flickered to life. It was definitely footage from a security cam-the image was black and white, but clear-nothing but the best for SHIELD-and the timestamp in the corner read 1:32:43 AM. It showed the seemingly normal doors of the SHIELD facility-everything quiet and clear, the doors innocently shut, with one extremely noticeable exception. SHIELD agents were using their armored vehicles as barricades, crouching behind them, and every single one had a weapon pointed at the doors. The helicopter was hovering silently, and Fury frowned. A 'copter of that size should have made noise.

"This particular cam doesn't have audio input, sir," Coulson offered. "It's literally the size of a crack in the wall, extremely hard to find, which may explain why it's the only camera we can still get data from."Fury raised an eyebrow, a question inherent in the gesture.

"The others were knocked out by...well, you'll just have to watch."Coulson sped up the video with a flick, and a bare two seconds passed before the action began. The glass doors suddenly slammed open on screen, and a girl skidded out.

Fury's mind automatically started cataloging everything he noticed about her-he hadn't become the Director of SHIELD for nothing. She was a little on the tall side, lean but muscular, coiled strength sitting below the surface, a lioness poised to strike. She had dark hair-since the image was black and white, he couldn't tell exactly what color-that was tied back in a low ponytail. It would appear that a section in the front had fallen out of the tie, as it cast forward when she jerked to a stop, flicking into one eye, and he could tell the texture was wavy if not curly. The girl was wearing an assortment of clothes that, while not exactly odd, were not any kind of suit or uniform-a short leather jacket with a high collar, jeans, and a v-neck shirt. The two interesting things about her clothing were on her hands and feet-thick, fingerless gloves and thick black boots that could only be described as military. The rest could easily blend in with a city crowd, nothing too extreme.

It was a calculated ensemble, designed to not be noticed. Of course, breaking into a SHIELD facility _may _have thrown that intent out the window. Unfortunately, from the angle this particular camera was at, there wasn't a clear view of her face, only a distorted three-quarter view from the watched, one eyebrow raised, as the scene unfolded. One of the agents' mouth moved, and she raised her hands in the air, but Fury saw, even through the screen, the alert tension in her shoulders that foretold she wasn't about to go down without a fight.

All of a sudden, her arms flashed out to the sides, and what happened next rendered even Fury speechless. Lightning did indeed explode outwards from her fingers, twisting as the girl spun, until finally light consumed the screen, individual bolts of electricity barely visible in the glare. There was a burst of static, then the footage was suddenly turned black, fluctuating to a dark grey as the camera's brightness filters tried to compensate for the sudden blinding light. When the video cleared, there was nothing but a parking lot, SHIELD agents either lying around groaning or with their hands clamped over their eyes, a helicopter desperately righting itself in the air, and absolutely no sign of the mysterious girl.

Fury was frozen for a bare second before he was moving, stalking out of the room with both Coulson and Agent Greene following him at a trot. The junior agents trailed behind awkardly, and with a snap of his fingers, Coulson had them following behind. Fury decided now was a good time for them to get some experience in tracking someone down.

"I want the best facial recognition program we've got running as soon as possible, use any frame from that video you have to get the face, just get it," he snapped. "Cross reference with every database we can get our hands on, get me mugshots, a name, date of birth, everything. I don't care what you were working on before, this is a priority." Three agents bobbed a nod and peeled off down another hallway. Fury continued to rattle off instructions at the remaining agents, until only Agents Coulson and Greene were left. Fury turned to enter his private office, slightly surprised Agent Greene was still here.

"S-sir?" she stuttered, and he whirled around.

"Yes, Agent? Make it quick, you can see we have a bit of a mission right now," he snapped. This time, she only winced a tiny bit at his tone. Hmm.

"Sir, there may be a faster way to find her." Fury raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eye at her. "Explain."

"Well, she s-stole files, right? Important ones," Agent Greene said, stuttering over her words as she cringed slightly in the full force of his glare, rushing through to skip over the fact she had reminded him of her team's blunder. Coulson, however, nodded at her to go on, and she gained confidence. "SHIELD files usually have a tag on them, for just these situations. If she did a full copy of the files, in the situation she was in, sir, she wouldn't have time to do a proper check through for tracking programs, sir. The tags may well still be intact-if we run an algorithm checking local servers for those particular signatures, we'll find them when she opens the data. Sir."

Fury considered this, but saw a flaw in her logic. "And what if she plugs into an isolated personal server?"

Agent Greene spread her hands. "Director, sir, did she look rich to you? It'll be hard enough for her to get her hands on a computer to review the data she stole, much less hide it from SHIELD. I've run intel before, sir, I know how thorough those programs are."

"And if she moves out of local range?" Fury asked sarcastically, seeing the largest hole in her plan. Greene didn't flinch at all this time, instead replying with the same dry tone.

"With all due respect, sir, I doubt she can afford transportation. And anyway, this is the last place anyone would expect a thief to hide-in the same place the theft was committed." Fury considered Greene for a second. She was smart, that was sure, maybe not a genius but she had the calculating mind of a good agent. Plus, she didn't seem to be stuck in the eternally subservient state that most junior agents acquired when he was around. His best agents followed orders, yes, but they had their own minds.

"Why'd you get this job, Agent Greene?" he asked. She blinked in surprise. "Why are you stuck guarding a facility that hasn't seen action in years instead of running intel where I need you?" He had other things he needed to take care of, of course, and he should probably just glare and attend to them, but he was actually curious.

Agent Greene was surprised by the question, but she appeared to weigh her options before deciding to tell the truth. She squared her shoulders and clasped her hands behind her back. "I refused to go on a date with my superior a few months ago. And called him out on it."

Fury almost chuckled-almost-before he was just annoyed. This kind of bullshit wasn't supposed to happen in his organization. He nodded seriously before waving a hand. "Dismissed, Agent. Good work," he added, since she seemed terrified she had said the wrong thing and was getting knocked down to typing duties. She flickered a quick salute and walked off, almost running.

Fury paused for a second before entering his office. "Get her a transfer. Something in intel, where she'll actually do well." Coulson nodded, pausing in the doorway. "First, though, I need you to go down to R&D, get them to pull every last pixel they can out of the other cameras, I don't care if they short-circuited or whatever the hell happened, I need a visual on her face. Understood?" he said, taking a heavy seat at his desk. Coulson nodded and left. "And get me transport to the Tesseract facility pronto, Selvig's been sending emails every damn half hour," Fury shouted after him. The agent waved to indicate that he heard.

Fury turned to his bank of monitors, bringing up the video with a short series of flicks from where Coulson had discreetly transferred it. He fast forwarded through, pausing it only when he found the frame he wanted-the girl had just started to drop into her spin, and her face was briefly turned towards him, a blurry image that he hoped tech would be able to clear up. Who _was _she?

He flicked the video away to be met with the cold grey background of all SHIELD computers. It didn't matter. He would find out.

And when he did, there would be a...conversation.

* * *

**Ohohoho, did I build the suspense? Well, I promised all would be explained, so explain I shall.**

**This is just the start of a new fic I'm planning. Obviously, it's set in the Avengers _movieverse_ (yeah, I jumped on the bandwagon), and equally obviously, it features some OCs. One of these original characters is going to be, yes you guessed it, a seventh Avenger. Before you start barking at me about 'mary-sues' and 'plot holes' and 'self-inserts,' please acknowledge that I started writing this for myself. I took a character who started out as, I'll admit, one of the biggest mary-sues I've ever made, and I turned her into a legitimate character. I decided to write down her story because I thought someone, somewhere would like to hear it. The fic will follow the movie plot, but I hope to get some original plot points in there. So please, tell me if you want to see more! I have several chapters written up, and I'll try my darndest to update regularly and quickly if this gets some approval. I'm on summer break right now, so that should be fairly easy. If anybody is interested in the story, I'll post a bit more explanation with the next chapter.**

**Also guys, I don't know if you caught my profile note or the deletion, but Divide by Zero was deleted by the admins, unfortunately. I am really sorry about that. I probably won't be putting it back up, as I didn't really have it saved anywhere but on a computer that is now completely fried. Ah well. At least I got my writing mojo back, right?**

**Anyway! Thanks for reading the first chapter, if you want to see more, REVIEW!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's notes will be at the end of the chapter in this story. Just for future reference.**

* * *

This computer was really starting to make her mad.

Okay, she'd admit, she wasn't a technological genius, but there were some things that she understood. Such as, 'press the round button with the power symbol on it to turn on the computer,' and 'the mouse plugs into the side of the computer' and 'if the monitor starts to smoke, you've probably done something wrong.' But she had been trying to get the damn thing to open the files she wanted for the past hour, or just, you know, _turn on_, and still no luck. The screen stared back at her, black and forlorn, as she growled and kicked the _extremely_outdated tower for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

Once more, not even the tiniest flicker of hope sustaining the action, she simply pressed the power button. No dice. Because that would just be too easy.

Sighing, she flipped the tower onto its side and removed the side panel. A sequence of motherboards, hardware components, and wires met her gaze. She wiggled the fingers of her right hand into one of her gloves. She really, really didn't want to overload the circuitry, not when _getting _the damn computer had been way more trouble than it was worth. It had taken her hours to find an electronics shop that was just large enough to have what she needed, but just small enough to warrant only a simple security system. And it wasn't like she had taken a touch-screen PC, either. No, she had been _nice _and had taken the oldest, chunkiest, most run-down mess of circuitry and plastic in the shop. And left behind a note saying it would be back by the weekend. And that she was sorry.

Because she was _nice. _

She sighed again and carefully applied the fingertips of her right hand to the closest knot of wires. Delicately, ever so delicately, she closes her eyes and felt her way along the pulses of power flowing through the wires. She could almost _see_them, the fine trails of electricity as they wound their way through the computer. There. She felt the flow snag on a wire, where the collection of filaments was just barely separated from a motherboard. Really, she could have accidentally jostled it and it might have slipped back into place. On one hand she was relieved it was such a simple fix and she wouldn't have to go sneaking back into an electronics store any time soon, but on the other she was annoyed. Using her aptitude (she deliberately avoided the word 'powers') could be fairly exhausting, especially when she was focusing so hard and on such delicate work. She scrunched up her eyebrows and easily tapped the wires back into place. Replacing the panel and righting the tower, she pressed the power button and nearly whooped when it wheezed to life. She sat back as she waited for the ancient thing to boot up, which she doubted would be a speedy process.

Raising a hand in front of her, she idly flicked her fingers against her thumb, pointer to pinky and back. Small _zap _noises were emitted as tiny arcs of energy jumped over her fingers, disappearing almost as quickly as they came. They only reached her first knuckle, though, before they were stopped by the gloves that she had designed for just such a purpose.

She had had these...okay, there was really no way around the word 'powers,' but whatever they were, she had had them all her life. She remembered being maybe five when she touched someone and made their hair stand up on end. Shocking herself in the bathtub. Sticking her fingers in light sockets and not only did nothing happen, but she felt _better, _if anything. Hell, if she remembered correctly, she had been hit by _lightning _at one point, and there were no harmful effects. Of course, she remembered _very _clearly everything that happened from her ninth birthday onwards, and that was where she learned to control the power, but...

No. _No. _She did not, not, _not _want to go there tonight. She abruptly leaned forward over the dusty keyboard, focusing entirely on the screen in front of her.

Leaning over, she picked the flash drive out of where her coat was lying on the bed. The motel room she had rented was...not five-star, but it served her purposes, and the fact that she had a stolen computer plugged in to the wall was probably the least illegal thing going on in the building. While normally that fact worried her, it carried the added bonus that no one, absolutely no one in the motel wanted government agents showing up at the door, so that worked as her security. Flicking a glance out the cloudy window, she inserted the flash drive into the tower.

Two hours later, she had finally managed to break through the encryption on the files. She may have been good with hardware, but she couldn't exactly crack software open and look at the wires inside. She suspected that if these files had been held at a more secure facility, and had been dubbed just a few levels more classified, she wouldn't have been able to break through at all. Irritated and frustrated, she gave a cry of triumph when the files finally unlocked in front of her.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes and clicked.

A veritable treasure trove of information appeared in front of her. She smirked, and got down to reading. Reading through her own past.

* * *

"Sir, we've got a match."

Director Fury looked down from where he had been staring out the windows. He signaled the agent who had spoken, and a second later, the information appeared on his personal screens. He got an impression of dark brown, shiny hair, pale skin, and odd eyes before someone else was shouting at him. Scowling, he turned around to be met with the flushed face of Agent Greene.

"What, Agent?" he said snapped a quick salute and took a deep breath. "Sir, we got a hit on the data tags. They match the ones on the files stolen last week."

_That _got Fury's attention. He nodded sharply and started rattling off instructions. "Get a team of thirty agents together, ones that aren't panicky or easily surprised. I want all of them armed with rubber gloves and the darkest shades we have-I don't need agents going blind, because I can almost guarantee this is going to get ugly. Bring enough defibrillators for the job, however many you think you'll need. Put a medical team on standby for burns before you go, I don't care how good you think you are, this girl isn't anything you've ever fought before." He turned and gestured at the screen. "Pass around a few copies of her picture, they don't need the full profile just yet."

Greene nodded. "Who do you want leading the operation, sir?"

Fury rasied an eyebrow. "You, of course, Agent Greene."

Even though her eyes widened a bit in surprise, she nodded again and turned on her heel.

"Agent!"

Greene turned around at the call and quirked an eyebrow. "Sir?"

"Do try to talk to her first-I'd like to meet her myself." Translation: bring her in for interrogation, alive. Greene's lips acquired the barest hint of a smirk and she turned away again. Fury resumed his study of the profile. They still hadn't found the name yet, not quite, but now that they had a clear picture of the girl, that particular program would go much faster.

His phone rang in his pocket.

Sparing it a quick glance, he noticed that the caller was Agent Coulson. Fury had sent the agent to New Mexico to join Dr. Selvig, with specific instructions not to call in unless there was something that required Fury's direct attention. Coulson was not a superficial man, either-he knew exactly what needed what levels of attention.

He closed the profile and turned to leave the bridge. Stalking through one of the doors, he put the phone to his ear.

"Director Fury."

_-Coulson speaking. Sir, Dr. Selvig is calling for an evacuation of the facilities and instructed me to inform you.-_

Fury's eyebrows shot up. "May I ask _why?_**"**

_-Selvig says the cube is...misbehaving.-_

Fury had time for Dr. Selvig when he was talking about the Tesseract-the man was more of an expert than anyone else on earth. If the scientist thought it was doing something dangerous enough to warrant a full-scale evacuation, then yes, Fury definitely needed to be there. Truth be told, he should have paid a visit to the New Mexico facility days ago, but things had come up and he had decided to send Coulson instead.

"Roger that. I'll be arriving as soon as possible, I'll get you an ETA as soon as I get one myself. Fury out." With that he hung up and rounded a corner. Leaning over to the nearest comm unit installed on the wall, he pressed his thumb to the scanner and punched in a code. The unit beeped, indicating that it had found the indicated agent and he was live. Sometimes he regretted the fact that most of his tech came from Stark Industries-useful little buggers, but he hated having that over his head.

"Agent Hill."

_-Director Fury?- _came the surprised but collected female voice. Maria Hill was probably not expecting a call from the man himself near midnight.

"I need you to get down to Hangar 2 ASAP, we're paying a call to New Mexico," he snapped over the comm. He could almost see her crisp nod.

_-Roger that, sir. En route now.-_

Of course. Hill was always ready-that was one reason she was among his inner circle of agents. He removed his thumb from the comm unit and continued down the hallway. He tried to focus on the task at hand-over the past few days, Agent Greene had proved herself more than competent, and she could certainly handle the collection. He had bigger problems to deal with.

* * *

The instant she closed the files, shaking slightly, she knew something was wrong.

It wasn't just that she finally had answers to questions she had been asking for three years, but that was certainly part of it. It was more the fact that her skin was crawling, seemingly without cause. It wasn't the fairly pleasant sensation of energy crackling over her skin-more like there was something inside her flesh. She stood up suddenly, sending the chair to the floor with a crash and unceremoniously yanking the power cord from the wall, the computer shutting down immediately and the cord sparking for good measure. Without even thinking about it, she clamped her hand over the electrical socket, sighing as she felt the familiar jolt rush through her. This always helped, and it brought back her energy much faster and much more completely than sleeping ever would. And sometimes, she just didn't have time to sleep.

Like right now.

She didn't know what first alerted her-maybe she glanced at the door, and saw the shadows moving around the bottom crack. Maybe she heard the slight creak of the runner on the third step from the top on the staircase down the hall. Maybe she heard a footstep just outside her window, or the swish of air as a hand was waved through the air. She didn't know what it was, but all of a sudden, every sense was hyper alert as adrenaline rushed through her veins. She was on her feet in a flash, focusing on calming her breathing and moving at a seemingly normal pace, so as not to alert whoever it was outside her door.

Grab bag. Hold the strap tightly. Put on jacket, pull on gloves. Stuff flash drive in back jeans pocket. Rejoice you left your boots on. Remove pistol from bag, make sure it has ammo. Turn on shower, make lots of noise. Walk to the right side of the door, moving silently. Hold breath. Wait.

It was an agonizing thirty seconds where she started to wondering if there were, in fact, hostiles outside her door. Then there was a whirr, a grinding noise, and a click, and every muscle in her body went tense.

The door cracked open, just a hair, and she slowly raised her pistol in front of her. She would wait, however, to click the safety off-that would give her away, if these people were who she thought they were.

The tip of a silencer poked through the door, slowly extending into the room. Her eyes went tense, but she continued to hold her breath, not moving a muscle. Just a little more...

The entirety of the pistol came into the room, and a thick-fingered hand was wrapped around the gun-too tightly, though, a brittle grasp, and her plan coalesced into action.

Her booted foot went shooting up, hitting the barrel square and sending the gun jerking and aiming straight towards the ceiling. There was a strangled noise, but her hand had already shot out, fingers digging into the tendons of the wrist she grabbed. With a heave, she dragged whoever it was into the room, surprising them with the direction of attack. Growling, she swung her victim off balance and into the wall face first, giving him a crack to the back of her head with the butt of her pistol for good measure. He fell to the floor, groaning, hands attempting to staunch the flow of blood, and she snatched the pistol out of his hands. She maneuvered her gun into her left hand, placing the far superior stolen weapon in her right.

She spun back around to find a pistol butt coming out of nowhere, probably to hit her across the temple and knock her out cold. One, this was a very stupid move because that was not a guaranteed knockout, and two, it told her something very important: they wanted her alive.

She blocked the swing with her right arm, punching out with a powerful fist with her right. Her fist connected with something, not a nose, but still painful enough, and she spun in a circle to complete the move, the edge of her flattened hand hitting the side of a head. She added an extra little burst of energy, nothing visible, and the second agent went headfirst into the desk and dropped like a stone.

"Freeze!" shouted the agent in the doorway now, his weapon pointed straight at her. It appeared to be the exact same as the one she had just acquired, but she wasn't willing to test that on her unarmored body. She didn't dare to try the same move, instead she grabbed the door by its handle and slammed it into his face with all of her considerable strength. The door cracked on impact, sending the agent stumbling off balance and crashing into those behind him. She wrenched the door open again, kicking straight out and causing a further domino effect. However, as she leaned out in the attack, she saw the hall was absolutely _full _of black-suited, body-armored, gun-toting agents. She knew what this was.

This was SHIELD.

Snarling, she fired a shot about an inch to the left of an agent's foot, making _him _jump backwards and toppling more agents. She definitely wasn't getting out that way. She slammed the door shut again, knowing that would only delay them for half a second. Sprinting across the room, she kicked the agent she had downed again for good measure. Reaching the opposite wall, she considered shooting through the window, but decided she didn't want to do _too _much damage. She simply wrenched it open, the glass trembling as it slammed into its casing.

There were more agents on the ground, guns pointed at her window as she threw a leg through it, yelling at her about 'standing down' and 'dropping the weapon' and a lot of things she had no intention of doing. But damn, there _were _a lot of them. She noticed with amusement that the body armor worn externally appeared to have a rubber covering over it, and the majority of the agents wore rubber gloves. Then her amusement disappeared like a stone down a well. That means they knew-and that might explain why they wanted her alive.

All of a sudden, she was really, _really _angry. They were _not _going to interrogate her, lock her away in a room somewhere until she was of use to them-not if her life depended on it.

In a lightning move-forgive the pun-her hand was pointing at the ground directly below her, and with a loud crack, fingers flinching, a bolt of yellow lightning flew from her hand to the ground. The dirt exploded outwards, leaving a tiny crater, and as expected, the agents nearest leaped back, focus abruptly drawn to the ground.

She took her chances and dove.

She hit the ground headfirst, but she rolled safely along the wall of the motel. The agents in the back had momentarily shocked, and were already running after her. She ran flat-out along the first alley she came to. She kept to the ground rather than escaping to the rooftops, knowing that they would have eyes in the air that would swoop down on her faster than she could say 'oops.' So she stayed on the street, cursing the fact that she didn't know this part of the city like the back of her hand, out of breath and out of patience.

Several times as she heard the footfalls behind her come uncomfortably close, she was forced to use her ability again-turning around, still running, her hand out behind her, a bolt of lightning felling an agent with a strike to the chest, where one or two agents would stop as well to make sure they weren't having a heart attack. While she was getting rid of them, it wasn't nearly fast enough for her liking.

And she was slowing down. They were, at last count, almost twenty agents still hot on her heels, and she was just one person-one person running out of tricks.

She rounded a corner at top speeds, stopping to catch her breath for half a second-they were far enough behind her. She hoped. Turning her head to the side, she saw what was pretty much a vision of salvation right now-a bank of trash cans, arranged unobtrusively against a dirty brick wall, with no windows peeking into the alleyway.

"Oh thank _Jesus,_**" **she panted before she could stop herself, then she clapped a hand to her mouth and mentally berated herself. Throwing one open, she jumped in without checking what was in it or anything-truth be told, it could be moldy artichokes covered in a nice garnish of old eggs, and she honestly would not care. She closed the lid silently over her, sending silent and profuse thank-yous to whatever deity was listening when her boots came in contact with nothing solid, just a general sliminess that she was perfectly happy with. She held her breath, both to avoid the stink and detection, her eyes wide open. Her bag clutched to her chest, pistol pointed at the lid, she waited.

Heavy footfalls rushed past, and there were orders shouted by a female voice.

"Find her! Fucking hell, this is _not _what I expected-Jesus Christ, just _find _her-"

Hidden in the solitude of her neighborhood trash can, she smirked. Yeah, she tended to be a lot more than most people expected.

Half an hour later, there had been no noise save for the yowling of an alley cat for a good long while. Cautiously, always cautiously, she raised the lid of the trash can and peered out. Looked to be clear. She climbed out, scraping the slime on her boots as best she could on the asphalt. Her bag looked to be as clean as it was when it went in, and the rest of her could be attended to later. SHIELD was smart and thorough-knowing them, they would check over every inch of the route the team had followed chasing her down, and her trash can fell right into that category. Patting the can affectionately, she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and headed off down the alley towards an intersection, sparks snapping between her fingers as she flicked them.

She contemplated her next move. She didn't know how, exactly, SHIELD had found her-she had thought she was pretty well removed-but she had a suspicion it had to do with the files she had opened, seeing as they were the only SHIELD-related item on her person. She would have to get out of the city, obviously. They could probably hack into any security camera they wanted, and even if she _didn't _perform any illegal activities-which she totally would-they could find her if she just walked past the wrong store. She would need somewhere to go over the files more in-depth-she had spent barely an hour looking over them, and then only the highlights, and she was sure there was even more information in the details-but somewhere that SHIELD wouldn't think to watch for activity. Somewhere out of the state, definitely-probably out of the country, if she could manage it. Random, unrelated to anything she had done in the past. Somewhere not suspiciously remote nor conspicuously upscale...

Morning found her in the airport, cleaned up and looking publicly presentable, thanks to an unoccupied house with a still-working shower and no security system, and almost a thousand dollars richer, thanks to an unsuspecting ATM. She was staring at the list of departures and arrivals, trying to decide where to go, and very aware that she was on plenty of screens right now-hackable screens-and that she couldn't put a hood up without looking even more conspicuous.

"Do you need help, ma'am?"She turned suddenly, senses on full alert again, to see a petite woman in the airport uniform smiling at her. She smiled back charmingly.

"Yes, actually, I do. I need help deciding where to go."The clerk looked confused for a moment before smiling knowingly. "A spontaneous trip, then?"

"Yeah. Just decided I needed a week somewhere else," she said, shrugging dejectedly. The clerk's smile changed to one of sympathy.

"Do you have any idea of where you'd like to go?"

She made a snap decision. "Germany," she said. Well _that _was out of nowhere. But she supposed it would do-she certainly didn't have any ties to it.

Not that she could remember, anyway.

The smile on the woman's face became even brighter. "Wonderful! The flights to Berlin are a bit pricey right now, but there's a plane to Stuttgart that's leaving in a few hours that should still have some seats open."

She raised an eyebrow. "Stuttgart?"

"Yes! Sixth-largest city in Germany, very charming...the flight is only three hundred dollars, but I'm afraid you'll have to buy now, ma'am," the clerk apologized.

She felt herself smiling back, and nodded.

Stuttgart. In Germany. That was _bound _to be out of the way enough.

* * *

**Oh how wrong she is, hehehehehe...**

**Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be continuing this story :D Don't worry, there will be plot-and Avengery goodness-very soon. Something happens in Stuttgart, remember? And I promise, we'll learn her name-well, I'll start writing it. We already kind of know it, right? And by the way, whenever I upload a doc, FF decides my syntax and spacing isn't good enough and messes everything up, so if there's any small errors in spaces or such, that's probably why.**

**Remember to review if you like the story!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry it's so short! But hey, an update is an update, right?**

* * *

This coffee was really damn good.

It had taken her about a week of prowling the streets of Stuttgart to find the best coffee shop, another two days to...ah...acquire enough money to make living near it feasible, but only three days to become a regular. There were some sacred things in the world, and perfectly brewed Jamaican coffee was one of them.

Which was why she found herself sipping a cup of it delightedly as the sun shone through the windows. Really, this was damn close to a perfect morning-no one had tried to rob her overnight, the ATM on the corner of Götze and Schaden Street still spat out hundred euro banknotes when she told it to, and the lovely barista who worked the morning shift had somehow managed to have her order ready when she got there. _That _had certainly been a pleasant surprise, a surprise which now found her sitting in the corner of the shop and drinking coffee, pondering.

It had been almost a week and a half since she had hopped on a plane to Stuttgart, and she hadn't been bothered by SHIELD yet. She had managed to keep her face off of wirelessly connected things, apparently, and that was just fine by her. She knew it was dangerous to make a routine, but God help her this coffee would make anyone question their judgment.

Leaning back in her chair, back carefully to the wall, she sipped one last time, sighed in contentment, and pulled out the book she had grabbed in the tiny bookstore a few blocks over. It was an old one, the binding fraying and the pages yellow, but _Pride and Prejudice_ had been one of her favorite books since she was very small. She hadn't been able to read it-or anything, for that matter-in a long time.

Suddenly she felt her skin crawl. More than that, though, there was a strong sense of warning at the back of her head, and she would have twitched if she wasn't used to this feeling. The last time it had happened, she had been able to slip out of the grocery store she was in before the SHIELD agents watching her could follow. This time, though, the feeling was doubled.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she raised her eyes. Nothing. She scanned the coffee shop quickly, and her gaze fell on someone who was looking back. _Aha__. _She looked him over quickly.

Green eyes. Long black hair, swept back. Sharp, angular face with gaunt cheeks, a sharp chin, and thin lips. Good quality clothes, black coat and green scarf, tall, thin. There was some kind of golden staff, waist-length leaning against his leg, his hand firmly covering the top. Really, those eyes were something. Bright green but colder than ice. And they were fixed on her.

She met his eyes unflinchingly, staring straight back with one dark eyebrow raised. He was seated at another table to her left, watching her, an empty styrofoam cup in his hand. But there was something magnetic, almost compelling about him, and running under all that was a cold, calculating sense of danger-the kind of feeling that nudged her fight-or-flight instinct to the fore. Something about this man screamed 'run away,' but she had never been one to flee. Under the danger, however, there was the oddest sense of _power_-something that resonated in her, what with her abilities.

She raised an eyebrow and put down her book, balancing her chin on one hand. "Need something?" she drawled.

"No, not at all, I was just admiring your...book," he responded, equally dry. His words were like silver, heavy and smooth with an accent she couldn't quite place, but made her think of Shakespeare and old literature. Her other eyebrow raised in an expression of amused disbelief. His lips curled in a one-sided smirk, and she picked up the novel again.

"Well, there's no harm in admiring a good example of...literature," she replied in the exact same tone. She returned to reading her book, even if she knew he was still watching her. Eventually though, she couldn't help but look back over, cocking her head to the side.

"Really, what is it that you want? You know it's rude to stare."

He smiled slightly. "Then I shall not be rude, we can't have that, can we?" She smirked back at him. "I was just thinking that few people would rather read an old novel than browse the...Internet or read...digitally," he said. She didn't miss his hesitation over the technological terms, and wondered at it briefly.

"Hmm. Well, I've always said why take a flimsy substitute when you can have a really lovely...book in your hands?" she said, taking a sip of her coffee, but keeping her eyes on his. His smile turned into another one of those smirks.

"And such a rarity, to find a classic being read in this day and age."

"Austen has always been a favorite."

"I wouldn't expect such aged interests in someone as young as yourself."

"How old do you think I am?"

"Younger than me."

"Not all that young, then."

"Do you think I'm _old__?" _he asked, putting mock hurt into his voice and placing a hand on his chest-the one not currently covering the top of the staff.

"Older than me," she retorted. This lightning-fast back-and-forth was making her head spin, but she found herself smiling without really meaning to. She hadn't been able to _talk _to someone in so long-much less someone who was actually intelligent. It was a human need, even if she wanted to deny it. Even if she wasn't sure this man was entirely human.

Okay, woah, where did _that _thought come from? Sure, she felt power in him, and there was the undercurrent of danger, but hey, he could just be a regular everyday normal guy. A smart, tall, regal, slightly terrifying normal guy. Nope, push that thought to the side, you are talking here, do you remember how to do normal human interaction?

He was talking again. Staring deep into her eyes, eyes intense and he was no longer smiling. "True. But what's really surprising is the amount of _power _in one so young, isn't it, lady lightning?"

Her blood froze in her veins. This conversation had just taken a serious one-eighty.

Her mind immediately started racing. She really, _really _needed to figure out who this guy was, and fast. SHIELD agent? No, they wouldn't have sent just one, and acknowledging the events of the past few weeks, they wouldn't have approached her so obviously-they would have ambushed her without saying a word. But who else could it be? Were there other people after her? _That _would complicate things. She was kind of in Hydra's backyard, but she had been careful about staying off their radar-they had a tendency towards sick science. Then again, she had thought she was free of SHIELD, too. Maybe she had slipped?

All of this, of course, occurred under the surface. Her face barely changed-her smile didn't even drop. If it went stiff and brittle, and her eyes went a little tight around the edges, who could blame her? This certainly did _not _qualify as normal human interaction. She had no set of reactions, no arsenal of expressions ready to cover what was happening inside.

The man was still watching her, and he smirked again when he saw her reaction. Except this time it wasn't a pleasant one designed to charm-it was triumphant and cold with a touch of disdain.

He spoke again. "There is a battle coming, lady lightning, one where the outcome is already decided. There are the conquerors, and those who will be crushed underfoot. That end would arrive all the quicker if you were fighting on the right side."

Wait-did he just try to _recruit _her?

While she sat, numbly processing the new information, he stood, flicking his staff. She had a brief impression of blue light before he was holding a golden stick no longer than her forearm. He tucked it inside his jacket and walked off without another glance. She remained tight, controlled, staring at where he had sat just a moment before. She thought he had left, which was why she jumped-slightly, ever so slightly, not to draw attention to herself-when his voice was in her ear.

"You'll be seeing me again, _Smith_."

She almost-_almost__-_whipped around, but instead, she turned around slowly, every muscle tight. She unwound the tiniest bit when no one was there, but continued turning. Eventually, she spotted him, standing just outside the sheet glass window of the shop front. Her blue-green eyes met his emerald ones for an instant, then she blinked, and when she opened her eyes, he was gone.

She flopped back into her seat with a huff, and resolved to just get through her coffee and get out of here. This was something that needed serious thinking.

* * *

Director Fury's bad days just seemed to be piling up.

He had lost good personnel, a damn good facility, his leading scientist, one of his best agents, and oh, yes, _the __Tesseract _in one fell swoop. And what had he gained? An absolutely batshit insane god from another universe threatening-no, _promising _to bring hell down on the Earth with his army of aliens. On top of that, the girl with the lightning had apparently dropped off the face of the Earth-although she had been put on a backburner, what with the _impending __doom _of the planet at hand. One girl with a power was not going to change the fate of humanity.

The second he thought that, he winced. Jinx.

The whooshing of a door opening attracted his attention, and he turned. Ah.

Bruce Banner had recently joined SHIELD, although Fury had never had any doubt about Natasha's skill, he had wondered if perhaps the doctor was too determined for her to handle. He was pleased, though, that the man had come of his own free will.

Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, on the other hand, had been with SHIELD ever since waking up from his imprisonment in the ice so long ago. He was a soldier through and through, and responded to authority with obedience. Fury was careful, however, not to push that blind following too far, as Rogers was still a man with a conscience, and once a bond was broken, it was not easily remade.

Both were powerful people-maybe not politically or even publicly, but both could easily get what they wanted if they were really determined. Rogers was a super-soldier, the first superhero, and Banner could take down the helicarrier itself if he really wanted to. But he had countermeasures in place for that.

"Doctor Banner," he called, catching the attention of the pair. Rogers slipped him a ten dollar bill, and he was reminded of their earlier bet that nothing would surprise the Captain. Fury smirked and pocketed it.

"Thank you for coming," he finished, shaking hands with the doctor after a pause.

"Thanks for asking nicely," the shorter man replied wryly. He asked a few questions, to which Fury responded honestly, and eventually he sent an agent off to deal with Banner's request about spectrometers. Romanov eventually came over and led the doctor out of the bridge, telling him about the high-tech lab they had prepared. Fury nodded to the Captain and walked back to his command position, flipping irritably through screens until, once again, he came to the file of the girl. She was an anomaly, and Fury did not like having things not under his control.

Coulson and the Captain were conversing about something-probably those damn cards-when he heard the now-familiar voice of Agent Greene. She had been moved to a bridge position within a week of her first promotion, proof that Fury's instincts were good.

"We got a hit," she called out. Fury immediately turned towards where she was sitting at a computer monitor, fingers flying over a satellite recognition program. The Captain and Coulson turned as well.

"Sixty seven percent match for Loki, sir. Wait, cross match-seventy nine percent match, sir."

"Location?" Coulson said, moving closer to study the image.

"Stuttgart, Germany. Coffee shop, it looks like." There was a pause as Greene's eyes widened, and she emitted a short bark of laughter. "And you'll never guess who he's with, sir."

Fury raised an eyebrow, but his own eye widening as he saw the video feed. Loki, the crazy bastard that he was, was indeed in a coffee shop. Looking painfully normal.

And across from him was the girl. Looking also painfully normal, considering she had escaped trained SHIELD agents-twice. She was still wearing the same clothes, Fury noticed, which would make her easy to find, hair still in the same ponytail. They looked to be having a conversation, in fact, smiling-no, not smiling, _smirking-__-_at each other. All at once, though, the smile dropped from Loki's face, and in a flash, the girl's face was tense and tight, her smile brittle and fake. Loki stood, still speaking, and left the shop. A few minutes later, the girl followed him.

Captain Rogers spoke up-Fury hadn't noticed him join the group. "That's Loki?" Fury nodded. "Who's that girl he's with?"

Fury sighed, realizing he hadn't brought the Captain up to date on that particular file. There had been no need to. "We don't really know. We've seen her in the past, though, she's on numerous SHIELD watchlists." Rogers' eyes told Fury that that wasn't enough of an answer. He sighed again and relented. "We believe she is in possession of supernatural powers. She's attacked a SHIELD outpost in the past and stolen sensitive files. If you have more questions, Agent Romanov has the file," he ended abruptly, seeing that the captain wanted to ask more questions. The blonde man nodded and returned to his position at the conference table, looking slightly forlorn as he waited around for orders.

"Sir, we've got a lock on his current position. He's not exactly hiding," Agent Greene piped up from her monitor. Fury nodded and turned to Rogers. A spark of inspiration came to him-what if the girl was working with Loki? That was a new angle to consider. He turned to Coulson momentarily, and said "Watch out for the gir, bring her back if you can-and find out if they're working together," in a low aside before he turned to Rogers.

"You might just have time to read that file, Captain. You're up."

* * *

**Okay, sorry about the delay, I wasn't able to get to a proper keyboard for a while. So! We got some Loki action, we finally met some Avengers, and I'm sorry that this was so short. I'm going to try and get a longer and more action-packed update up in the next few days-I'm operating on just a few hours of sleep and I'm beat.**

**Remember-the more you review, the faster I update ;D**

**-Hopp**


	4. Chapter 4

**The ****lack ****of ****reviews ****is ****making ****me ****sad****, ****guys****...****and ****sorry ****about ****the ****language ****in ****this ****chapter****-****just ****warning ****you**** :****P**

* * *

In truth, she didn't know _why _she was at this gala.

She hated fancy parties, detested most of the people attending, and hadn't been invited in any sense of the word. However, over the past few days, she had been stagnating-growing bored. Her life was one of action, so two weeks without a single thing happening was enough to bore her to tears. The only thing of note was this intrusion into the high life and the conversation with the green-eyed man yesterday. That had shaken her, yes, and what did she do when she was shaken?

She infiltrated buildings to creep on partygoers.

Which was how she found herself sitting on the railing of a second floor balcony, watching the glittering ladies and sumptuously dressed men walk about the room, string music wafting upwards to her ears. One gloved hand was delicately clasped around the railing, her back pressed up flush against a corner column, one knee up and the other leg on the open side of the railing. Getting in had been rather easy-no one expected a teenage girl to drop in from above when security was expecting drunken party crashers. No one had spotted her, either, although there had been a close call-in her experience, she had noticed that few people tended to look up. Her uncovered fingertips tapped the smooth marble along with the music as she relaxed against the pillar, her other hand holding a delicate glass of champagne she had snagged from a table, unseen.

Really, though, there was no reason for her to be here. It was a spontaneous and reasonably stupid move. However she didn't regret it in the slightest-this was how she had fun.

That probably said something horrible about her mental state, that she had fun by hanging out in restricted areas and watching people, but hey, she had never said she was entirely mentally sound.

She leaned back lazily, shifting farther down into the shadows and stretching. She slid down from the railing, trailing a hand across it, before she froze. There was that _feeling _again-the one that had come over her in the coffee shop, the feeling of being watched. Her head snapped up, sweeping the crowd below her before scanning across the shadowy balconies across and around her. And then she saw her target.

_He _was watching her again. The green-eyed man, in all his striking glory, the man who had so smoothly uncovered her secrets and laid them out in the open. She had no idea how the hell he got here. He was still wearing the black coat ensemble, the gold staff held in his hands. The blue light at the top was out in the open now, casting an eerie blue glow on his face and throwing his angular features into sharp relief. His eyes looked icy blue in the light, and his lips curled in a decidedly predatory grin when he saw she had noticed him.

Her mouth had dropped open slightly, but she shut it slowly, raising one eyebrow and chuckling softly. Well wasn't this a right coincidence. Or was it? He had said she would see him again...

Still chuckling softly, she inclined her head while maintaining eye contact and raised her glass, leaning out over the railing. He raised the staff in his hand in a mockery of her toast, shadows shifting, and tipped it towards the left-there were stairs there, farther along the balcony, that went down into the ballroom. One of his eyebrows raised as if to say, _Shall __we__?_

She grinned back, sudden and feral, as if to respond, _Why __the __hell __not__?_

He set off immediately towards the stairs, but she went that way at a slower pace. Which was probably the best decision, as when she rounded the top of the stairs, she heard screams. Her eyebrows immediately drew together and she began to creep down the white marble steps.

There was no need. By the time she arrived in the main room, all she saw was the fleeing remains of the fancy crowd, people screaming their heads off, and a flash of gold light. There was a body twitching on what had been the focal point of the evening-an artsy reproduction of the Ark of the Covenant. Running up to the suited man, she recoiled in disgust when she saw the bloody ripped hole that was where his left eye used to be. Choking back her dinner, she turned on her heel and ran for the doors, her heart in her throat. Obviously, the guy in the black coat with the staff had caused this-so what offer had she just unknowingly accepted?

_I __am __in __**way** __over __my __head__._

She skidded out of the museum, halting before abruptly changing course and streaking to the right. The last thing she needed was someone noticing her right now.

There was a man-suspiciously familiar in height, bearing, and hair-in gold and green armor with a horned helmet moving through the crowd. There were shimmers of light around the crowd, and she watched, gaping, as copies of the man appeared in their place. The true one moved through the crowd, pointing a full-length golden spear threateningly at the crowd. She was sure it was him when he turned and she saw his face, but she had known the second she saw the eerie blue light at the head of the spear. His eyes passed over her briefly, and was that a hint of a smirk when he spotted her?

"Is this not simpler? Is this not your natural state?" he said, moving through the crowd. She was disgusted to see that they were, in fact, cowering, lowering their heads closer to the ground when he passed. "It's the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation." She felt her hands clench into fists. Okay, yeah, she had a serious problem with this psychopath. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

She was furious now. She had problems with a lot of things, but this was one of her biggest rules-you fight for freedom or you die trying. Perhaps she had been thinking about joining this man in whatever scheme this man had planned, what with the charm that simply dripped from his words, but now...now things were different. And anyone who threatened freedom was her enemy.

She took care of her enemies.

She was about to move forward herself when she spotted movement and decided to stay in the shadows. An old man was standing, shakily, but with a determined look on his face. The man's eyes were hard as he spoke quietly.

"Not to men like you."

The man with the spear and armor, stared down by a man in his seventies. He looked taken aback, leaning slightly backwards in shock. The black-haired man recovered quickly, though, and smiled-a smile that sent shivers down her spine.

"There are no men like me," he said wryly, but was that a tinge of loss she heard?

"There are always men like you."

For a second, all was still. And then that evil grin came back, and the tip of the spear raised. "Look to your elder, people, and let him be an example to you all." The light in the staff began to flare brighter, and she made a split-second decision.

Her hand snapped out, and lightning flashed across the plaza with a crack. It struck the menacing man's hand precisely where it met the staff, making him whip around, the light dimming again. His eyes found hers once more and he took a single step towards her as she raised a hand, palm towards him, prepared to defend herself. Worth it.

There was a blur of red and white, and the man was knocked back. She found herself with her hand outstretched to nothing, and she looked around confusedly.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everyone else, we ended up disagreeing."

And, okay, yeah, there was a guy standing there in a red, white, and blue jumpsuit. This was happening.

"The soldier. A man out of time," the black-haired one on the ground sneered.

"I'm not the one out of time," the newcomer retorted. Her eyes went wide. Oh God, that was Captain America. _The _Captain America. She wasn't _too _surprised-the files she had stolen had been a little more all-inclusive than she had originally intended-but holy Jesus, that was _Captain __America__. _Worse, though, he was SHIELD's little pet project, which meant they couldn't be too far behind.

Goddammit, it was her week or something, because honestly, this has got to be the only damn time in SHIELD's entire career where they were suddenly very involved in Stuttgart, Germany. And of course, that managed to be the day she was there, and a scant day after she had finished talking to an extremely creepy man who she suspected was clinically insane. Fucking coincidences, ruining everything.

There was a plane in the sky now. That was new. She really needed to work on her observation skills. Oh, and it had a PA too. That was nice.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down." That was a female voice-strong and slightly accented, but still obviously female as the jet hovered over the scattering crowd. Wait. _Loki__? _That rang a bell-something that reminded her of lessons and books with Norse writing in them...wait.

Oh, _fuck__._

At this point, Loki-Jesus Christ, this was what her life was now, talking with Norse gods in coffee shops and Captain America dropping out of the sky, she almost missed the days when she just stole files and ran-had fought back, striking again and again with his spear. She was really just trying to get out of the way, inching her way around the edge of the plaza-she didn't need SHIELD noticing her right now-but it seemed like Loki's creepy little teleportation ability would have him crop up wherever she went, and the Captain would follow. So she did the intelligent thing-she hid behind a bush until the fight was over.

At one point, it looked like Loki had gained the upper hand and was pressing down on the Captain, but the red boot lashed out and swept the god's legs out from under him. The jet was shifting from side to side in the air-yeah, it was still there, and it was messing her hair up-but it was obvious it couldn't get a clear shot to Loki without risking the Captain.

She was just about to make a break for it when suddenly, AC/DC was blasting from the jet, and her gaze was drawn upwards to stare quizzically at the plane. It just didn't seem like SHIELD. Not that she was complaining, but-

A straight beam of some kind of energy went blasting over her head, and she yelped and crouched down before slapping her hand over her mouth. Her hair was thrown to the front as yet another flying projectile joined the fray. She slowly rose to her feet, throwing caution to the winds, because really, if one has the opportunity to see _Iron __Man _in action, you take the damn opportunity. Tony Stark was known worldwide, both as the genius weapons designer and as Iron Man, but she hadn't known he was working with SHIELD.

And he, at least, was an enemy she knew exactly how to deal with. She smirked, and kept her position.

"Make your move, Reindeer Games."

Seriously, that suit had a ridiculous amount of weapons. She could barely count the amount of missiles that popped up out of the red and gold shoulders of the billionaire's armor, not to mention the bright light coming from his palms, and it appeared to cow Loki. He raised his hands non-threateningly, and his armor simply...phased away in a glimmer of light.

"Good move," Iron Man said sarcastically as the jet landed and Loki was led inside. Okay, yes, start thinking about escape, they're done with the main enemy, they are distracted, this is the best situation possible, they're busy meeting each other or something, start _moving__..._

She was just turning and starting her first hurried step when she felt a strong hand clamp around her upper arm and pull her backwards. _Shit__._

She reacted immediately, twisting the captive arm and sending her other elbow into whoever had grabbed her's neck. Or, at least, that _should _have been his neck-all her elbow ended up hitting was a white star in the middle of Captain America's chest.

_This __is __really __not __my __day__. __This __is __really__, __really __not __my __day__..._

The hand around her arm loosened somewhat in surprise, and she took advantage of that, twisting her arm around again and managing to break free. She sent a punch in the vicinity of his face for good measure, smirked slightly when she felt her fist contact something, and then took off running in the other direction. _Fuuuuuuuck__. __Get __me __out __of __here__._

She heard a short bout of shouting behind her, but she didn't turn around to look. She heard a noise that sounded like the jet firing up-_oh __please__, __for __the __love __of __God__, __please __don__'__t __have __them __send __the __goddamn __**plane **__after __me__-_and there was a flash of red.

Iron Man, of course, they sent fucking Iron Man, this was too good, clanked to the ground in front of her, feet planted firmly and hand out in front of him, glowing palm out.

She skidded to a stop and held her own hands out at her sides, breathing heavily and every muscle tense in anticipation.

"Look, kid, I have no idea why they want you, but I'm gonna need you to head back to the jet," came the slightly synthesized voice of Tony Stark.

She barked a short laugh. "Like hell I'm going with SHIELD," she said through clenched teeth. The red metal shoulders shrugged.

"I tend to agree with you, but have it your way," he said shortly, lunging for her without warning.

Godammit. On one hand, he was forcing her into combat, and she could very easily short every circuit in his suit. However, that would also give him pretty severe burns, and that would just intensify SHIELD's vendetta against her. Not to mention gain her Tony fucking_ Stark_ as an enemy. He was probably even more well-connected than SHIELD, not to mention a genius. But she really needed him off her tail-Iron Man following her wasn't going to be conducive to escape.

So she surprised him, and caught him by the hand, swung him around, and gave him a jolt.

It wasn't enough to hurt him, but it was enough to shut down some things in his hands, including the light beam thing in his palm. Small arcs of energy crackled over his hand, dissipating by the time they reached his elbow, but he still yelped. She used his distraction to his advantage by planting her hand in the middle of his chest and, using all of her considerable strength, pushed.

He only went back a foot or so, barely managing to keep his foot as he shook his hand out and cursed, but that was enough time for her to really run.

No, of course it couldn't be that easy, though.

A blue arm snatched her around the waist and bodily lifted her off the ground, and she was moving backwards, this was very bad, she really did not want to get on that jet. She punched, kicked, scratched at the arm around her, but apparently the Captain's body armor was designed for something slightly stronger than her. She tried to shock him, slowly growing in intensity as she grew more desperate, but every time, he just twitched and kept going.

Eventually, though, he got her back to the jet. She was about to really start fighting when a syringe was suddenly a few inches away from her eyes, held in a red metal hand. She went very still. The face of Tony Stark-genius billionaire and self-made superhero-joined the tool. This was kind of surreal, attacking Captain America and Iron Man in the same situation, really, it was great, but it also very, very immediate.

"If you could stop trying to give the good Captain a heart attack, darling, I won't have to stick this in your neck. You'll be wanting to _walk _into SHIELD, instead of being carried, unconscious, right?" She breathed in deeply through her nostrils, fighting down the terror that rose every time she saw a needle, and just glared at him. She didn't, however, resume her struggling.

"Thought so." Stark walked away, taking off the helmet fully as he walked into the jet. She remained still as the Captain dragged her into the jet, and he set her down across from Loki, not ungently. He then joined Stark near the cockpit.

Loki, on the other hand, watched her with a mixture of curiosity and disdain in his green eyes. What did she expect from someone that had just made his opening bid in whatever power play he was trying to act out? She folded her legs Indian-style and her arms across her chest and stared back, giving him glare for glare. Eventually, though, she got bored, and dropped her gaze to look around the jet. It wasn't big, but it certainly was high tech, with what she could see of the cockpit was covered in holographic screens and buttons that probably blew things up. And she was sitting on a _metal _seat.

Grinning ever so slightly, she unfolded her arms and swiveled, keeping an eye on the Captain and Stark, but turning so that she could press her fingertips against the wall she had previously been leaning against. She was just about to press them against the cool metal when Stark spoke up.

"Yeah, I'm gonna need you to not do whatever you're trying to do," he said dryly. She slowly looked over at him, giving him a _Really__? _look. He waved his gauntleted fingers. "I don't know what voodoo magic you did with my suit, but really, it's a pain to get these things back online, and I would _really _prefer you not sending the quinjet plummeting out of the sky right now."

When she still didn't remove her fingers from the metal panels, the Captain stepped towards her. "Miss Smith, if you would please take your hands off the metal," he said, not threateningly, but his hands were tensed. She, however, froze. Eyebrows drawn down, she spoke for the first time.

"How do you know my name?" she demanded, suddenly very nervous. If SHIELD just wanted the Captain to pick her up, he wouldn't have been briefed on her abilities, at least not in this sense-he shouldn't know what she could do just by putting her hands on the walls of something electric.

The Captain looked confused-he had taken his cowl down, so she could actually see his goddamn face, blonde hair and all. He pointed to something on her left. "Your file, ma'am."

She looked to her left, startled, and plain as day, there was an open file folder on the bench. Pretty thick, too. The first page had her picture at the top, and yeah, her fucking name was printed in bold black letters. She resisted the urge to groan and just dropped her head into her hands. Number one, SHIELD did not keep files that extensive on people they were just looking to interrogate about a theft, and number two, she had been doing _so __well _staying off the radar.

Yeah. Leah Smith was in a lot of trouble.

* * *

**So****! ****We ****are **_**finally **_**starting ****to ****stray ****into ****plot****-****centric ****territory****, ****and ****I ****swear****, ****there ****will ****be ****answers ****coming ****soon****. ****Very ****soon****, ****in ****fact****, ****as ****I ****have ****the ****Chapter**** 5 ****doc ****open ****right ****now****. ****However****, ****while ****there ****are ****plenty ****of ****story ****alerts ****and ****favorites ****happening****, ****very ****few ****of ****you ****are ****reviewing**** (****thank ****you ****to ****my ****current ****reviewers****, ****by ****the ****way****). ****And ****I ****can **_**finally **_**start ****referring ****to ****Leah ****as ****something ****other ****than**** '****she****,' ****thank ****God****.**

**Remember ****you ****guys****...****the ****more ****you ****review****, ****the ****faster ****I ****update**** ;****P**

**-****Hopp**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry ****for ****the ****long ****wait****! ****Extra ****long ****chapter ****as ****consolation****...?**

* * *

Tony Stark really just wanted a cup of goddamn coffee.

He had left Stark Tower-which had made him _very_put out, by the way-suited up and ready to go, and arrived just in time to save the dear Captain. Steve Rogers, the classic superhero, the guy he had grown up hearing about, had needed his help, which was just rich. _That _particular battle had gone well, Loki surrendering a scant moment after Stark arrived. That was slightly suspicious, but hey, he would take what he could get when a god from another dimension was trying to take over the world. Then, barely a second later, the Captain had grabbed some girl from out of the shadows-literally-and she had taken off after breaking free. _Then _the great blonde man was shouting in his ear about 'SHIELD priority' and 'supernatural powers' and 'retrieve with caution.' Tony had waved him off and gone after the girl...

...and had promptly had most of the circuitry in his right gauntlet fried.

He still didn't know what she had done, but she had grabbed his hand and it felt like he'd stuck his hand into an electrical socket, not quite enough voltage to do permanent damage, but his hand sure twitched around and was generally useless for about ten minutes. Stars and Stripes, of course, had shown up at that point and hauled the girl off. Her name was Lizzie, Lara, something with an L-he couldn't really be bothered to remember, what with a guy threatening the continued existence of the human race sitting just across from her-and she was certainly _not __happy _to be here.

She was not, at first glance, pretty. Jaw too square (and too often clenched), mouth too wide, lips too thin, nose too short and too snubbed, brows too thick, brown freckles too numerous. Not to mention the small scar on one side of her top lip, and the odd branching burn creeping up her neck. And that was even before she opened her mouth. No, he didn't think there would be lines of men stretching around the block for this girl. But she was fiery enough to punch _Captain __America-__-_and that had not been a soft knock, either-and that was good enough for him. Her eyes were interesting enough, he supposed-kind of weird, dark blue near the top of her iris, fading into a pale spring green-and her hair was dark brown and silky-looking.

Her and Loki were having some kind of staredown as he watched, narrowed eyes on her side and vaguely amused annoyance on his. Tony personally found the way they had been for almost ten minutes without blinking incredibly creepy, and finally broke off his careful observation.

"I don't like it," Rogers said suddenly, watching out the front windows but glancing back where Loki was still staring at the girl.

"What, Rock of Ages giving up so easily? Or the fact that our _other __passenger__,_" he said pointedly, ignoring it when she rolled her eyes, "managed to mess up one of my gauntlets just by touching it, really, that was very weird." Now it was the Captain's turn to roll his eyes, followed by a barely restrained sigh.

"I don't remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop," the man elaborated, shifting uncomfortably. Well, really, how comfortable could he be in a spangled unitard?

"Still, you were pretty spry for an older fellow. What's your thing, pilates?"

Rogers slowly turned irritated eyes on him. "What?"

"It's like calisthenics," Stark replied, eyes glittering. "You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle."

That got the desired reaction-the blonde's mouth tightened and he looked away, but his knuckles tightened on his shield. "Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in," he finally gritted out.

"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you," Tony said cryptically, turning back to narrow his eyes at the girl. She grinned at him innocently, but something in her smile seemed genuinely pleased.

"And what're you so pleased about?" he asked, raising one eyebrow. Her grin just got wider. Leah-that was her name, he really needed to remember that. Leah Smith.

"Oh, nothing. I just really like it when there's lightning," she said happily. Which worried him. Someone who could mess up his suit being happy while around him was generally a thing to be avoided. The other worrying thing, there wasn't a single roll of thunder or bolt of lightning, so what was she talking about?

And then he heard the first _crack__._

"Where's this coming from?" Romanov muttered from the front seat. He leaned over the empty copilot's chair, staring in confusion as where there had been relatively clear skies a few seconds ago, there were now angry black storm clouds and flashes of lightning. Okay, that made _no _scientific sense...

Tony turned back just in time to see Loki flinch. The Captain just looked at Leah oddly for her giant grin and then turned to the god. "What, scared of a little lightning?"

Loki shuddered slightly. "I'm not overly fond of what follows."

Yeah, he should take some pointers from the Smith girl. She was practically bouncing in her seat. All of a sudden, though, she froze, and would have stood if the Captain hadn't gone to stand next to her. She fixed her gaze on the ceiling, eyebrows drawing down, before she looked quickly at the back of the jet, a quizzical expression still on her face.

With a screech of metal and a crash, the back of the quinjet was forced open, and a man stood in the opening.

He was tall, big, and muscular, with shoulder-length blonde hair and a beard. Add in the ridiculous armor, flowing red cape, and giant hammer held in one fist, he might as well be from the middle ages. His arrival left both Stark and the Captain stunned for a second, and that was all the newcomer needed to grab Loki by the throat and jump-no, not jump, _fly_ out the opening again. Not before, however, Stark noticed, he glanced at Leah and she peered at him, puzzled. When he left, leaving Stark wondering what the hell just happened and the Captain completely confused, she was still pondering.

"Now there's that guy," Stark said, irritated. He really did not need to be chasing after the crazed god-_again-_-and wanted to head off this chase as soon as possible. He reached over and grabbed his helmet from where he had left it on the bench next to the girl. He squinted at her. "You didn't do anything to it, did you?" he asked distractedly.

She grinned-okay, that was kind of evil looking-and held her hands up innocently. "Not a thing, Mr. Stark."

He was about to retort when Agent Romanov spoke up from the front. "Another Asgardian?" she asked in the tone of the long-suffering.

"Think the guy's a friendly?" the Captain asked. Tony wanted to roll his eyes. Instead, he donned his helmet, making a mental note to get Jarvis to check for any circuitry errors.

"Doesn't matter," he said shortly. "If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost." He prepared to jump from the jet, repulsors firing up, and he felt the heat in his hands and boots.

"Stark, we need a plan of attack!" Rogers said, and he could swear that there was a note of irritation in the good Captain's voice. What, Captain America, angry?

"I have a plan. Attack," he said shortly, and jumped from the jet.

Steve spun, looking angrily at Leah. She raised her hands defensively and narrowed her eyes. "Oh hell no. You are not blaming me. _You _dragged me into this."

He sighed deeply. He really wished Fury had told him he was calling Stark in. A person needed time to prepare for that man. Reaching over, Steve snatched up one of the parachutes lined up against the wall and began to strap it on.

"I'd sit this one out, Cap," Romanov warned from the pilot's seat, unconcernedly adjusting dials. Leah was impressed by her seemingly all-encompassing calm.

"I don't see how I can," the usually mild-mannered man bit out.

"These guys come from legend, they're basically gods."

"With all due respect, there's only one god, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't look like that," the Captain said, and jumped from the still-open back of the jet.

Leah tossed a quick glance to where the red-headed agent sighed and turned back to the dashboard, then flicked her gaze out the opening. They were still obviously pretty high up, but hey, that was what the parachute was for, right? Inching ever so slowly and silently towards the remaining parachutes, she stretched out a hand-

"Don't even think about it."

She slammed back into her seat at the cool voice from the cockpit, looking over to see one red eyebrow raise delicately. Leah refolded her arms with a huff.

"Oh, sure, I don't get to have fun, fine, be that way," she muttered. She glanced back to the front just in time to see one corner of Agent Romanov's mouth twitch.

"Just stay in your seat, Smith. We're close to home base, and then you're out of my hands," she said smoothly, although Leah swore she heard an undertone of laughter.

Leah just huffed again and rolled her eyes, but remained quiet. She'd get out of here soon enough-might as well not make it obvious.

* * *

In retrospect, this was probably one of the worst situations Leah could be in. Deep in the belly of a SHIELD base-she didn't even really know where she _was__-_with agents everywhere, no clue how to get out, and, worse, she was in a cell.

She had been led to and deposited in a blank white room by Agent Romanov, which she would have been nervous about if there was absolutely nothing in the room that was threatening. Sure, there was a metal table with two chairs on either side, but the rest of it-off-white walls, ceiling, and floor, the yellow lamp hanging from the ceiling-wasn't quite sterile. The door, however, had locked behind her securely-she had heard the whir of multiple mechanical locks and muffled voices. For half a second, she had stood still where Romanov had shoved her in, but then she was moving, running her fingers over the walls, noting that they weren't metal, which had disappointed her but also restored her faith in SHIELD's intelligence, as low as she thought it to be. Leah had, however, found the cold, smooth portion of wall that was different from the others-mirrored glass. She'd bet anything there were agents watching her from the other side. That thought made her skin crawl with both that sense of being watched and old memories, but she shook off the feeling and worked on finding the exact dimensions of the glass. She had traced the edges exactly, and she heard talking from behind the glass. She had bared her teeth at it in a feral grin, and then lazily walked around the room again. Eventually, though, she had grown bored with stalking and had sat in the chair, one ankle crossed over her knee and supporting her chin on one hand, the elbow of that arm balanced on the arm of the metal chair. A metal chair. That was just stupid.

She heard the door open and close, and registered the spike of energy behind her as the mechanisms activated, but otherwise, Leah did not turn. Footsteps approached, and then, to her utmost disbelief, a man in a white coat sat down across from her with a pleasant smile on his face.

"Oh my _God__._"

The man jumped as she groaned her words. She hadn't spoken a single word since her short exchange with Agent Romanov in the plane. He looked slightly bemused for a second, then his careful mask of pleasantness was back in place. She, however, kept going.

"You are kidding me. This is just insulting, really it is, I am offended right now. You sent me a shrink. A goddamn _shrink__. _I am deeply hurt right now, SHIELD, you have cut me deep, there is no reason for you to think I am mentally unstable, when have I ever given you that idea?" The words were spoken scathingly, and they may have been joking, but her tone was not. She was on the verge of snarling, because really, she did not have time for this.

He simply smiled wider, but she noted how his eyes tensed up and flicked for half a second towards where she knew the glass was. "Now, Leah, we don't think you're unstable, we just-"

"So you admit you _are_ a shrink? I don't care, I knew that already, but yeah, no, that's not going to happen," she cut in, eyes narrowed dangerously. "You can call me Smith, or Miss Smith if you're feeling polite like all shrinks do all the time, but you have not earned first name privileges yet, don't you know these rules? A sad day it is when I have to teach a goddamn shrink how to be polite." She folded her arms, tapping a staccato beat on her bicep.

He gaped at her slightly, then resumed his composure. "As you wish, Miss Smith. I am merely here to conduct a psychological evaluation and collect some information for your f-records."

"Also not happening," Leah commented simply. He waited for her to say more, but she declined, simply staring at him intensely.

He cleared his throat and fixed her with a carefully soothing look. "I just need to ask you a couple of questions and then you can be on your way."

"Bullshit," she stated clearly and just as carefully as he had. But then she clamped her lips shut, sat back in her chair, and turned her face to stone.

Unfortunately, he took that as a sign of acceptance, and looked down at the first paper in his hands.

"When is your birthday, Miss Smith?"

Leah didn't say a word. It was a harmless question, but that was exactly why they were asking it-if she answered harmless questions in the beginning, she may be lulled into answering a more searching one honestly. The shrink waited for almost a minute before he sighed.

"Where were you born?"

Silence from the chair. The shrink was working at remaining impassive and pleasant, but Leah could see his facade begin to crack as he continued to ask more questions.

"Miss Smith, I'm sorry but you need to answer the questions," he said frustratedly after her six or seventh refusal to speak. When she still didn't respond, he gave her a strained smile. Inwardly, Leah was giggling. God, she _loved _doing this to shrinks.

"This is important, Miss Smith." No response. Just a slight lifting of the corners of her lips, and a frustrated sigh from the psychologist and another irritated glance towards the glass. He flipped a few papers, and then leaned on the table, forearms flat along the metal.

"Do you have any family, Miss Smith?"

Her jaw clenched. Yeah, that was the one question she didn't answer. For a second, all she could think of was her mother's blue eyes, her dad's laugh, her little brother's art project he brought home from his first day of fourth grade...

She didn't say a word, though. Her eyes narrowed to slits, however, and her hands clenched into fists. "Don't go there," she said shortly.

The shrink, however, smiled in triumph and wrote something down. She felt her neck go tense. He leaned forward, putting more of his weight on the table. "Tell me about your mother," he suggested pleasantly.

She leaned forward too, and maybe he saw some of the anger in her eyes, because he recoiled slightly. She kept her hands off the table, though, and simply said, "Time's up."

She planted her index finger firmly on the table, not breaking eye contact with the amusedly condescending shrink. "We're not done yet, Miss Smi-"

And then she sent him the jolt.

Lightning raced along the table, the smallest jolt she could make conducted to a ridiculous degree by the steel table. It was visible, too, arcing and casting flashing shadows against both of their faces. The psychologist, unfortunately, had most of his arms on the flat surface, and jumped back with a yell as the shocks raced up his arms. They started twitching uncontrollably, and the shrink dissolved into pained cries, batting where Leah could see scorch marks twisting around the white arms of his lab coat. Leah stood up fast enough that the chair knocked over and she stalked around the table, grabbed the man by the collar of his lab coat, and dragged him across the room. She was seething, and not currently making the best judgment calls, so it was with relish that she slapped her hand to the left of where she _knew_the door was, and _forced _the electrical wiring she knew was behind the wall to operate. The wall-door slid open suddenly with a clang, and she was staring into the face of some extremely shocked guards and a line of people in suits, some in lab coats as well.

She tossed the man into the nearest person, making sure not to step over the line of the doorway.

"Next," she gritted out from between clenched teeth. And with that, she marched back inside her cell without saying a word, hearing the door slide shut again behind her.

* * *

"Well. That was...something."

Tony Stark had just made the understatement of the century. They-'they' being the group of people, including Director Fury, Maria Hill, Agent Coulson, and himself-he still didn't know why he was here, actually-were staring in stunned silence at the mirrored glass panel that looked into Leah's room-cell. Well. Tony had his answer as to what she had done to his gauntlet-the miniature bolts of yellow lightning running over the table and up the man's arms had been evidence enough. The girl obviously had some sort of control over electricity-and Tony began to realize the full implications of that power when she so easily manipulated the electrically-controlled door into opening. By accessing wires that were under plastic. At least three inches of plastic.

If you asked Tony, he'd say that was a lot of power.

Which made him think-why hadn't Fury killed her yet? He hated to even think that about Fury when the girl couldn't be even eighteen years old, but then again, if the one-eyed Director considered her a threat, she would have been bagged up and erased already. So why was he keeping her on the helicarrier, locked away but not exactly completely contained?

The answers he got were both extremely entertaining and made him want to slap the man for his stupidity. Of course, he already knew which one was correct, thanks to Jarvis and some hacking on the fly, but what Fury didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"So, uh. What now?" he asked in a chipper tone, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. Fury pinned him with a baleful glare, and Agent Hill and Coulson were still staring in some amount of shock at the pane of glass. No one answered him as beyond the glass, Leah sat down stiffly in the chair the psychologist had occupied previously, but turned it towards the glass, matching Coulson stare for stare, although she couldn't see through.

"Well, I'd suggest _not _trying to pin her down with the touchy feely stuff and the pleasantries-she hates you enough already." Fury would not stop giving him that _look__-_the one that promised death and flames. Eh, it had never bothered him before.

"And what _do_ you suggest, Mr. Stark?" asked Hill in an icy tone, turning from the glass to add her glare to Fury's.

He thought for half a second before a blinding grin split his features. "Let me in there."

There was a beat where the mirrored looks of disbelief on everyone's faces was priceless, and then they were shooting him down instantly. Tony merely gave them a half smile as they talked themselves out and sat back.

"-and what, exactly, Mr. Stark, would you hope to accomplish?" Hill finished with a frustrated hand-wave. He shrugged nonchalantly.

"Well, first of all, she seems to understand that I am not under direct orders from SHIELD-and before you screech at me, Fury, yes, it is rather obvious she has a problem with your little organization, and it's a big one. Second, I am on record as possessing the epitome of charm, Fury how could you _possibly _forget this," he said, batting his eyelashes until the level of heat radiating from the Director's glare became slightly too hot for even him to handle. Tony sighed. "Look, it's pretty obvious you're trying to have her _not _try and kill everyone in sight wearing SHIELD logos, and that means you need someone who's not SHIELD. And who has experience in...business negotiations."

Fury eyed him piercingly for a moment, before huffing out the sigh of someone who deeply regrets the choice they just made. "Fine, Stark. But you mess this up-"

"Yes, yes darling, thank you _so_much, I will try to not irrevocably piss off one of my future teammates," he snarked, before realizing he had said something he shouldn't have. Fury's eye tensed and widened slightly with a look that did not bode well for Tony.

"Stark," he said quietly and dangerously. "What did I say about hacking into our files?"

"Ah, yes, time to go, have to convince the zappy lightning chick we're on her side, look at the time!" he said cheerily before fleeing the room. Coulson managed to slip out beside him, efficiently avoiding Fury's rage.

"No suit?" the agent asked blandly. Tony snorted, entering the absolutely mind-bendingly complex passcode that would get him access to most things on the helicarrier. Designed by yours truly, of course. Designer's rights, he had argued when Fury nearly had an aneurysm learning he had a cover-all pass to reasonably unclassified things.

"Of course not. First of all, it would just make her aggressive-_more _aggressive," he corrected, "and she has the...you know. Lightning. I still haven't completely fixed that gauntlet she messed with."

Coulson's light touch on his shoulder made him flinch, but the agent ignored it. "Stark. First, you're right-Fury wants her on the Initative."

Tony blinked. "Well that's just bloody stupid-"

Coulson continued to speak over him. "So try and get her used to that idea. And you get used to it too. And changing her attitude about SHIELD, by whatever miniscule a degree, would be helpful. Second, try and find out exactly what she can do with that power of hers."

Stark shrugged, and paused over the industrial strength containment door. "I make no promises. Least I can do is get her to not murder everyone in sight when she gets out." Coulson made a face and opened his mouth, but Tony pressed a mocking finger to his lips and the suited man scowled before moving aside. Tony pressed the button.

Leah was sitting, completely casual with her hands folded on the table, occupying the spot the ill-fated psychologist had previously. And Jesus Christ, he hadn't seen a look _that _intensely unimpressed directed at him since-well, since the first few months of his meeting Pepper. That particular similarity made him squash a grin. The room was eerily silent, the off-white plastic walls glowing slightly in the light from the ceiling lamp.

Leah, however, merely raised an eyebrow and gestured in front of her. "Please, Mr. Stark, have a seat," she said in a mocking tone of voice. He raised his own eyebrow at that, but took her offer and sat. He was careful, however, to not touch the table or touch the metal of his chair against it. She noticed the movements and snorted.

"I didn't kill him, you know, or even do any permanent damage," she said offhandedly. He didn't have to ask who she was talking about-the psychologist she had so succinctly ejected-but the fact that she was so casual about it set off a warning bell or two.

"Just made his arms spaz out like an advertising inflatable and gave him the scare of his life, yeah," he retorted, but she just grinned at him, the corners of her mouth curling viciously.

"Well, I never denied that, did I?" she said sweetly, and Tony catalogued that particular tone of silky sweetness away as 'run-for-your-fucking-life-if-ever-used-on-you.'

He didn't answer her, just folding his arms. She leaned back, and he noticed her fingers tapping on the edges of the chair arms. A nervous tic-noted.

"So why exactly did they send you in? Not to set me at ease, surely," she snorted in derision. He pouted at that, but she did have a point-what did Fury call him that one time? Ah, yes, 'the most annoying little scrap of sandpaper to the eye when he wanted to be.' That had gone uncontested.

"I'll have you know I am a very calming personality," he said mildly. He had gotten her into a conversation, at least-and without any prompting, either. He considered that a victory. Her face twisted, and he paused in what he was about to say.

"Yeah, and you _have _to be a better choice than sending in a pleasant-faced, bland-voiced _dumbass _of a psychologist to deal with me," she said dryly, dropping the side of her head to her shoulder to fix a _look _at the glass. Stark would have laughed if he wasn't busy trying to map out his strategy.

"Christ, chicky, there's no need to give the wall a 'get back' stare," he said, completely straight-faced. She then turned a look of incredulous disbelief on him, eyes narrowed in surprise.

"Did you seriously call me 'chicky' and quote Jet in the same sentence?" Leah asked, her tone one of both confusion and amusement. Okay, so she hadn't leaned over and stopped his heart when he called her that, this was a good thing. And...yes, yes he had quoted a song he barely knew the lyrics to. Whoops. Although the fact that she grabbed at that as a reference so quickly was a clue in to her interests.

He shrugged. "Yup. Unless you prefer Zappy. Electro. Ruiner of Circuitry. We can work something out." Her eyebrows ascended into her hairline, and she held a finger just slightly above the table, and he backtracked by holding his hands up in a sign of surrender, which just made her chuckle slightly and lean back again. They stared at each other in silence, analyzing almost unconsciously.

"What do I have to do to get you to listen to me for five minutes?" Tony said suddenly, making her start slightly before she smirked-a guarded expression.

"Why, Mr. Stark, I have been listening," she said, sweeping a hand through the air grandly, before adding under her breath, "not that I have much _choice_..."

He took a small breath, made a snap decision-one of _millions _in his lifetime, believe him-and placed his hands on the metal table, fully aware she had her hands tapping on the edge as well. He could almost see Fury's look of 'are you fucking insane, Stark.'

Leah, though, looked extremely surprised. Obviously, she hadn't expected him to take that risk-and to be perfectly honest, he hadn't been planning on it either. But she was so transparently disregarding everything he said, she was already on the defensive and she wasn't going to actually listen to anything because she was analyzing it not as 'what could result because of this and how will it affect me' but 'exactly what percent of that statement is designed to lure me into something that could screw me over.' Tony knew how that looked because he did it all the time. So he needed something that could make her actually consider what he said, because she tossing it aside automatically.

The only sign of her surprise was a jerking back of her fingertips before they returned to their position and a raising of her eyebrows. Really, they were distractingly dark, especially against the pale of her skin, even accounting for the freckles. It was impossible to _not _notice them.

"I need you to _actually _listen," he said seriously, and heaved an internal sigh of relief when he saw the understanding in her eyes. He hadn't thought she was dim, but was relieved that he wouldn't have to spell out the way he knew what she was doing. That would just take more of his valuable time.

Leah pinned him with a searching look, before nodding slightly. He paused a moment, giving her stare for stare, before launching into it.

"You have nowhere to go." She flinched at that, and opened her mouth to protest, but it snapped shut again when he glared at her not to interrupt. "Not really. Even if you can get away to some motel in Bumfuck, Nowhere, SHIELD will find you eventually. You get this, I'm sure." She didn't respond, but then again he didn't expect her to. "Stealing the files only made you an immediate target instead of one that they'd take care of next year, or maybe the year after that. What? Surprised? Fury prides himself on knowing every tiny scrap of information that could ever possibly be turned to his benefit, or could be used against him as an actual threat." She snorted a bit and shrugged acceptingly. "And your...thing, whatever you do, is not exactly...subtle, so I'm going to guess you were already being monitored." Her eyebrows came down and Leah glared at nothing, but still didn't speak. "Fury could kill you in a remarkably broad range of ways," he said blandly, ignoring it when her eyes jerked to his. "Anything from slipping particularly nasty poison into your morning tea or hitting you with an orbital strike, and odds are you'd never see it coming," he continued ruthlessly. Tony was at the heart of this endeavor now, and he took the shot.

"Instead, he's offering you a job."

There was a moment of silence where Leah just stared at him with stunned eyes, before she started laughing. Full-out laughter, which had her forehead on the table as she snorted her way out of it, although he definitely detected a vicious, vindictive edge to it. But she absolutely busted up, and he just sat back, watching her passively as she hooted.

"Fucking hell," she gasped between giggles. "Fury is...pretty damn short on staff, isn't he?" Tony smirked slightly, waiting for her to get over the initial shock. Because hell yes, that was a defensive mechanism-there was probably genuine mirth somewhere, but in all honesty, she was giving herself time to digest the idea. The idea of working for people she hated completely, from what Tony had seen.

"Yup. Cause as scary as your little shock trick is," he said, wiggling his fingers, "it's really not much over a distance." And here came stage two-figuring out exactly what she could do.

Leah stopped laughing immediately, and fixed him with that almost-trademark raised-eyebrow glare.

The light hanging over their heads exploded in a shower of sparks.

Tony barely twitched, but he did glance at the sparks that rolled along the flat surface of the table before dying out. Back up lights, he assumed, came on because there was barely half a second of darkness before the lighting returned to normal. Her eyes, however, hadn't moved a millimeter when he looked back at her, nor had her perfectly raised eyebrow budged.

His StarkPhone suddenly turned on in his pocket. With a smooth movement, he flicked it back off, but almost instantly felt the tiny tremor that indicated it was back on. He hesitated before turning it off this time, wanting to see if she could do anything else with it. She shrugged slightly, indicating boredom, before it shut off on its own. There was a tiny pause, and then they heard muffled yelling-Fury must not even be bothering to soundproof the glass any more, now that she knew full well it was there, and the yelling also came from outside the cell door. Tony didn't know what was going on in there, but from the more annoyed rather than furious tone of the yells, it didn't sound too threatening. Leah smirked at him.

"So," he said, folding his hands on the table and wondering at the slight jolt of vaguely...pleased? surprise in her eyes when he did so. "Electricity. Got specifics for me?" he asked, dropping any pretense that he was doing anything other than fishing for information clearly.

Leah hesitated, then sighed, slightly amused, before humoring him. "Fuck it, SHIELD'll find out eventually. Electricity, yeah, pretty much. That includes hardware-your phone, for example," she said. His hand went to his pocket instinctively. "I can make it turn on and off, probably vibrate or whatever, but I have to deal with software like a normal person."

"You got a range on this, kid?"

"Don't call me kid," she said, scowling, before she shrugged. "Not really. Rather, I don't really know. I've never gotten 'too far away' before."

Which was slightly nerve-wracking, but Tony didn't let it show. "Anything else you care to mention?"

"I could probably, maybe make the door open again at this range, but I think I would unnerve the twenty agents with electronic headsets standing outside," she said blandly, but he saw the twitch of annoyance under the surface. He rolled his eyes-really, SHIELD agents were supposed to be _smart_-and looked back down just in time to see her small, genuine smile fade.

"'Probably, maybe'?" he questioned. She had done it easily enough before. She smiled slightly, a hard-edged one that didn't convey happiness at all.

"I was angry before."

Tony nodded, pondering. Hmm. Emotions affecting the ease of power use...interesting. And the fact that mentioning her family had gotten her from cold and amused to cold and pissed off that fast. He sensed she had more to say. He waved his hands for her to go on.

Leah raised an eyebrow again, and simply said "Lightning. Quite a bit of it. Ask Fury."

He watched her for a second, then shrugged. Nah, he'd take the more direct route, even if the Director might try to castrate him if he kept snooping through files.

There was a silence for a few moments, and then to his surprise, she fidgeted. Actually fidgeted, as if she were uncomfortable. Inwardly, he grinned. Perfect.

"So, about that job and how this 'Fury' man is generally an idiot..." He gaped at her for a split second before looking at her with a (mostly) falsely horrified expression.

"Oh, kid, even _I _don't call him an idiot to his face," he said in a stage whisper. Her mouth twitched to the side, as if she were trying not to grin. But she eventually just shrugged, and waited for him to respond to her question, tapping her fingers on the table erratically.

"I believe he wants you on a...special...task force? Fuck, I don't know how to describe it, but it's a team designed to protect the world." He winced when he saw the expression of shocked disbelief on her face. "That was supposed to come out better, it really was, I had a speech about the virtues of saving the planet and being an upstanding member of humanity and responsibility with power ready." Her expression grew amused and that eyebrow raised again. "...okay, not really, but those are the bones of the bullshit argument everyone else will give you." He shrugged, standing and adjusting his suit. She looked startled, as if she forgot she was in a SHIELD facility and this was a negotiation for what was, essentially, her life.

"All I'm saying is, take this position or SHIELD will grab you off the streets to kill you or run tests on you or do whatever it is they do sooner or later."

Her face twisted into an expression of anger and, inexplicably, terror when he said 'run tests,' then her fingers went back to tapping out their staccato beat, if a little faster than before. He paused, pushing in his chair and everything, giving her as much time as possible. He wasn't exaggerating, though. SHIELD did not let supernaturally powered individuals with a penchant against the organization go that easily.

Tony saw the battle going on inside her briefly when he peered into her eyes, but then it was shuttered off, and she sighed deeply. Just like Fury had, in fact-the sigh of 'I am going to regret this _so __much__.'_

"Fine," she said eventually, making eye contact with him, fingers still tapping. He gave her his biggest grin, and she rolled her eyes.

"Fabulous, just great, I wasn't looking forward to watching the eventual war between you and Fury peter out," he said, pleased. Also kind of annoyed, though. That psychologist deserved to be fired if _Tony __Stark _had been able to do his job better than he had.

"On one condition." Fuck. That phrase never led to good things.

"Yeeees?" he asked, drawing the vowel out warily. Leah rolled her eyes again, and he resisted the urge to stick out his tongue.

"Get me an MP3 player and an iTunes gift card," she said evenly, staring at him blankly, but he saw a rueful smile edging in. "My last iPod short circuited because of...unexplained causes. And I'd just like to say, Fury is still an idiot if he really wants me in on this," she added, but she sounded kind of...pleased?

Tony grinned at her-a real one, this time. "Kid, I see your iPod and raise you StarkTech. Welcome to the team."

* * *

**Aaaah****, ****okay****, ****sorry ****for ****the ****long ****wait****, ****but ****this ****was ****an ****extra****-****long ****chapter****, ****so ****that ****makes up ****for ****it****, ****right****? ****Also****, ****let ****me ****just ****say ****right ****now****, ****Tony ****is ****my ****favorite****, ****accept ****no ****substitutions****, ****so ****there ****will ****be ****a ****lot ****of ****Leah****-****Tony ****interaction****-****and ****you ****will ****soon ****begin ****to ****realize ****why ****that ****thought ****makes ****me ****cackle ****in ****evil ****glee****. ****And ****don****'****t ****worry****...****this ****is **_**not**__**, **_**I ****repeat **_**not **_**going ****to ****become ****a ****Tony ****X ****OC ****romance****. ****Cross ****my ****heart an****d ****hope ****to ****die****. ****And ****by ****the ****way****, ****there ****are ****pictures ****of ****Leah ****at ****my ****deviantArt ****profile-****-****link ****is ****on ****my ****profile ****page****. And I'm sorry about any errors you might catch, seems determined to mess up my formatting :P**

**Reviews ****are ****love****!**

**-****Hopp**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry ****about ****the ****wait****! ****At ****least ****we****'****re ****starting ****in ****on ****the ****action****, ****right****? ****And ****it****'****s ****long****, ****too**** :****D ****Reviews ****are ****love****!**

* * *

Leah had gone from being a sworn enemy of SHIELD to being on one of their most important teams in less than a day.

She was still kind of reeling from the fact that she had, in essence, agreed to join SHIELD for the price of an MP3 player (the fact that it was a _really __cool _StarkPhone that Stark had given her along with almost five hundred dollars worth of song-buying cash was irrelevant). Stark had thrown an arm around her shoulders-she had tried to duck under it but damn that man had an iron grip-and proclaimed she was going to love it here, where no one ever smiled and everyone carried deadly weapons as standard issue. Leah had merely raised an eyebrow at that, but in truth, there was an unpleasant curling sensation in the pit of her stomach. She had _already _started to regret this decision.

But what choice did she have, really? She had never _really _believed that SHIELD would let her go-she had already been planning various modes of escape. And even if maybe, just maybe, she had managed to escape, what would she do? Spend the rest of her life fleeing SHIELD? Hiding, running, never being able to stop? No. She refused to live like that. So if joining with the enemy was the only alternative, you could be damn sure Leah would take it.

There were worse ways to spend your life.

Which was why she found herself standing in a room that was about as big as the one she had had in the motel, a tiny cubicle attached as an excuse for a bathroom and the furniture consisting of a cot and a dresser. Stark had been peeled off of her by the Director-who had been introduced to her with a disconcerting amount of respect in the billionaire's tone-and she had been led to her room by another agent, who had been dubbed 'Agent' by Stark before Director Fury managed to introduce her properly to Agent Coulson. Leah got a distinct sense of intense dislike from Fury, and he had given her a pointed glare with his one good eye. She had glared right back until he looked away. On the other hand, Agent Coulson seemed perfectly pleasant-detached, of course, but he had at least told her when her questions strayed towards classified information. She was currently on something called a helicarrier-from his explanation she got an impression of a very large flying aircraft carrier, but she would have to see it to believe it-and that the team she had fumbled her way onto was called the Avengers Initiative. It was designed to combine a team of people to protect the planet, yes, but it had been scrapped until recently. Coulson had said there were a total of seven members, herself and Stark included, and that she would meet the others later. Leah had been briefed on the matter at hand-Loki, her creepy guy from the coffee shop, had arrived from his homeworld of Asgard (which was a whole other conversation Coulson promised to explain in more detail later), stolen the Tesseract, a source of infinite energy that Leah was _extremely _interested in, and was going to bring his alien army to Earth and take over.

Yeah. Just another day in the life.

Coulson had said to use this room as her own, given her a brief description of how to get to the bridge from here, and left her to it with specific instructions to come to him if she needed anything. When he had said that particular instruction, she had caught the meaning of 'because every other agent on this ship has been told you're a threat for the past few weeks.' But she had simply nodded and he had left.

The room wasn't _really _that bad, it was just...familiar. Not in a good way. Leah gulped, and had to force herself away from where she had been glued to the wall. The square, sterile room and single cot was making her hyperventilate-just a little bit, shut up-but she was distracted by the item on the bed. She shook it out and snorted. Did they _really _expect her to wear one of the classic SHIELD jumpsuits? Yeah, that really was not their brightest idea. It wasn't that she didn't think she'd fit one, there were just SHIELD logo patches..._everywhere__. _She'd keep her own clothes, thanks. After narrowing her eyes at the innocently blue fabric, she folded it crisply again and replaces it on the bed. Leah stared at the walls with a catch in her throat and decided that she was definitely not going to sleep here.

The blank hallways were a little better than the cold, sterile room. She reminded herself where she was at least twice before she gets to the bridge-hopefully that will get better, because if she starts having a minor panic attack every time she sees a room like that one, that would be _super _inconvenient. She was angry at herself, too. It had been almost five years since she got herself out, and there is absolutely no reason it should still be affecting her.

Leah shook off the feeling, patted herself on the back for not flinching when an agent brushed up against her accidentally, and stepped through an automatic door onto the bridge.

The bridge was huge, a veritable sea of monitors and agents stretched out from the edge of the raised floor she was currently standing on, all the way to the giant window that made up the far wall. She gaped slightly at the window-it's view of clouds and sky, and what she thought might be a sea glittering far below seemed almost unreal, despite what Coulson had told her about the helicarrier. The agent himself was standing to one side, and he flicked her a small smile as she entered. Captain Rogers was sitting at a large conference table, but he rose when she entered, and another blonde man leaning against the wall straightened. Leah peered at the unidentified man for a moment before realizing where he was familiar from-he was the one who had so effortlessly broken into the quinjet on the way here. He didn't seem to be in full armor anymore, sparkly chainmail and flowing cape conspicuously absent, but he still had the giant hammer clipped to his belt. Leah took a closer look at his face and had an impression of a strong nose, a short blonde beard, and surprisingly soft blue eyes before she glanced away. More than that was the sense of power she had had back in the jet that was still present-the same kind of power that she had, a crackling kind of heat. Before she could tell herself she was being crazy, she considered exactly where she was and the circumstances, and conceded it was entirely possible to find someone who felt like her power did.

Then there was a flicker of a blue shirt in her peripheral vision and she turned, only to have to crane her neck slightly to look Captain America-_Captain __America__, _she was never going to get used to that, was she-in the eye. He was wearing a sheepish expression and she wondered what that was about.

"Miss Smith," he said quietly, and she quirked an eyebrow. "I'm sorry for treating you so roughly the first time we met."

Leah's other eyebrow jerked up in surprise at the honest regret in his tone. Generally when soldiers did their job, they weren't repentant about the means. But the fact he seemed to honestly regret his actions banished any last trace of leftover resentment. Instead, her smile turned warm and she shrugged.

"You were just doing your job. And it turned out...alright, so no harm done," she said graciously-which she could tell you was _not_how she usually responded to such things. She had no qualms admitting she was not a gracious person. Leah stuck a hand out. "I'm pleased to meet you officially, Captain."

"Steve," he mumbled. "Steve Rogers." His cheeks were faintly pink, and Leah grinned.

"Well, then, Steve, I'm Leah," she said, shaking his hand firmly. He smiled at her, a tiny one, but it was there nonetheless, before he stepped aside.

And then there was tall, blonde, and muscly, warm hand suddenly on hers. Leah barely had time to voice an 'um' before he raised her hand to his lips and pressed them against her fingers.

She was pretty sure her heart gave an audible thump as her expression froze, because seriously, this was something not found outside fairy tales, and she hadn't heard a fairy tale since she was four years old. This _new _blonde giant smiled at her and said in an unsurprisingly deep voice, "My lady Leah, I am Thor, son of Odin, of the royal house of Asgard, and it is a pleasure to know you."

She stared for another half second before making a noise that sounded between a strangle and a short, hysterical laugh, before she cleared her throat as he released her hand. "Likewise." The fact that he appeared to be another Norse god, not just named after one, didn't even faze her at this point.

His eyebrows furrowed a bit, but his smiled stayed genuine. "It is strange, to feel the power of storms in one so young."

Her smile turned bland. God, she had heard this before. And while on paper she may be still well under the legal drinking age, that said absolutely nothing about how she acted. But she shrugged, and merely said "It's all I know."

"Exactly how old _are _you?" Rogers cut in from her other side, and Leah looked over to see a pinched look on his face.

"Uh...seventeen. And a half?" It came out sounding as a question, but she was fine with that because to be perfectly honest, she wasn't 100% sure about the exact date any more.

His eyes were shocked, and Thor was looking a little surprised too, and she could have rolled her eyes, because she could read that look easier than the type on a computer screen-_she__'__s __so __young__, __why __is __she __in __battle__, __just __a __child__, __too __young __to __fight__._

"Don't give me that look, Captain," she snapped. "I've been doing this-and on my own-for a lot longer than you'd expect."

Rogers' eyes flashed reproachfully for a second before he looked sheepish again. "Of course. Forgive me for presuming."

She quirked an eyebrow, and said "Forgiven," but in a joking tone to let him know that she hadn't thought less of him in the first place.

A hand came down on her back and she nearly pitched face-first into the pretty, SHIELD-logoed floor before regaining her balance. "I like this one! She has spirit, young as she is!" Thor laughed, and Leah managed a startled grin before turning to Rogers with a more serious look on her face.

"I assume Fury has told you that I'll be joining your little...team?" she questioned. Rogers nodded, but his face had the same pinched look he had had when she mentioned her age. Leah sighed.

"Rogers, I'm not going to go crazy and try and murder you all. My...differences are with SHIELD, not you," she said quietly. "I chose to join you, and by that choice I'll try and work with the rest of the team." His face smoothed out and he nodded again, resuming his position at the conference table. Thor remained standing, arms folded and an oddly concerned look on his face as he watched the windows. Leah was interested to know what he could do, but the fact that his armor vaguely reminded her of Loki's was a clue in the right direction. She wondered what she had possibly wandered across, a team made up of rich geniuses and super soldiers that by all rights should be dead and Norse gods from the same place as their current enemy.

Sweet lord. What had Stark talked her into?

She only had a few moments to ponder the seriously worrying answers to that question when another man appeared out of one of the doors, looking decidedly out of place and accompanied by a redheaded woman wearing a simple jacket over one of the SHIELD uniforms. The newcomer was, thank God, shorter than Rogers and Thor-finally, someone she didn't have to crane her neck to look at without getting a face full of pectorals-with thick dark hair and nervous eyes. Everything about him was nervous, actually, from the hands he held awkwardly in front of him to the slightly hunched shoulders that said he wasn't expecting anyone to trust him. Leah knew that look.

Agent Romanov walking next to him was the complete opposite-confidence exuded from every pore, from the strong but relaxed stance she took next to the table which made it clear she was always on alert to the analyzing look she gave everyone in the room. If the gaze she pinned on Leah was especially searching, she couldn't blame the agent-because she _so __obviously _was SHIELD-since she _had _joined the agency all of an hour ago. She was stunning, certainly, short red hair curled around her jawline and flawless skin almost glowing, but the real power was in the strength she possessed. Leah decided right then and there this was a woman to be respected.

Rogers nodded from his spot at the table. "Doctor Banner, Agent Romanov." The mentioned persons nodded back. So that was Bruce Banner, Leah mused, remembering the incredibly short briefing Coulson had given her on her new teammates. Agent Natasha Romanov, Coulson had said simply, was a woman to be feared.

"Loki has been contained and the Director is...ah...running over procedure with him now," the redhead said shortly, fingers flicking over the table and screens came to life at each spot around the table. Leah leaned closer to the one nearest her and bumped elbows with Dr. Banner. He jolted slightly at the contact, and offered a distracted smile in return for her small one. Leah bent over her screen as the image flickered to life.

Loki was standing in what Leah immediately dubbed the super villain fish tank, standing near the thick glass and in the middle of a conversation with Director Fury, whose hands were hovering over a bank of panels. The audio started up just at the beginning of a sentence.

_-__In __case __it__'__s __unclear__,-_ Fury said dryly on screen. _-__You __try __to __escape__, __you __so __much __as __scratch __that __glass__...-_

He pressed a button, and with a grinding of metal, the floor under Loki's cage opened to reveal a sea glistening far below.

-_Thiry __thousand __feet __straight __down __in __a __steel __trap__. __You __get __how __that __works__?- _He gestured to Loki. _-__Ant__..._- back to the console -..._boot__.-_

Loki chuckled a bit, his emerald stare fixed on Fury. _-__An __impressive __cage__. __Not __built__, __I __think__, __for __me__.-_

Fury glared right back. _-__Built __for __some thing __a __lot __stronger __than __you__.-_

_-__Oh __I__'__ve __heard__,- _came the mocking response, and Loki turned suddenly to the camera screen. _-__The __mindless __beast__, __makes __play __to __be __the __man__.- _Next to her, Banner rubbed the bridge of his nose, and Leah saw Romanoff tense.

Loki turned suddenly back to Fury, derision in every word he spoke. _-__How __desperate __are __you__, __that __you __call __on __such __lost __creatures __to __defend __you__?- _he almost-growled, and Leah felt herself tense. Fury, however, took it in stride, cocking his head to the side in an expression of amused disbelief.

-_How __desperate __am __I__? __You __threaten __my __world __with __war__, __you __steal __a __force __you __can__'__t __hope __to __control__, __you __talk __about __peace __and __you __kill __cause __it__'__s __fun__,- _he said in a deadly tone of voice. _-__You __have __made __me _very _desperate__. __You __might __not __be __glad __that __you __did__.-_

Loki sneered, leaning forwards. _-__Ooh__. __It _burns _you __to __have __come __so __close__, __to __have __the __Tesseract__, __to __have __power__, __unlimited __power__. __And __for __what__? __A __warm __light __for __all __mankind __to __share__?- _There was a tone of mocking innocence there, and Leah felt foreboding stirring inside. Loki drew back then, all amusement gone and cold condescension left in its place. _-__And __then __to __be __reminded __what _real _power __is__.-_

Fury stared at the god for another second, then turned on his heel and walked away. _-__Yeah__, __well__, __let __me __know __if__ '__Real __Power__' __wants __a __magazine __or __something__.-_

Leah snorted. She may not like the Director very much (at all), but he knew how to make an exit.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner commented wryly from her elbow. Rogers sighed and leaned back in his chair, but Leah could see his hands were tense on the arms.

"Loki's going to draw this out," the Captain said, resigned, then turned to Thor. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

The great blonde folded his arms, and really, was that just a play to hide a flex, because all the men in this conversation had _ridiculous __muscles__. _Well, except for Banner. He looked pretty normal.

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor admitted, and Leah's eyebrows raised to learn that Loki's claim of an army wasn't just bluff. "That none of Asgard nor any world know. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth in return for, I expect, the Tesseract."

The table was quiet for a moment, before Leah spoke up. "An army. From outer space. And how exactly is he planning to have them _get _here?" she asked dryly. Thor gave her a small frown, but Banner cut in, his tone interested.

"So he's building another portal? That's what he needs Erik Selvig for," the doctor mused, still wringing his hands, almost unconsciously. Thor straightened, concerned eyes turning to Doctor Banner.

"Selvig?" the god asked.

"He's an astrophysicist," Banner explained, thoughts still churning behind his eyes.

"He's a friend," Thor said, leaning against the wall again, brows more deeply furrowed than before. Leah remembered that name-she was fairly certain she had read it in the stolen files, and she realized that was also where she had first heard mention of the Tesseract.

Romanov cut in then, crouching down at the edge of the raised floor, next to one of the empty monitors, files passing under her fingers at lightspeed. "Loki has him under some kind of spell-along with one of ours," she added almost absentmindedly, and Leah would have thought it was no great concern to the agent if she hadn't read the tension lying under the surface of the words.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here," Rogers said speculatively. Leah contemplated that idea-that Loki had allowed himself to be captured for whatever nefarious purpose-and decided she didn't like the color of it at all.

"You're right-there's got to be some reason he gave up so easily in Stuttgart," she put in. "He doesn't seem like the type to surrender all of a sudden."

Banner snorted slightly, and she turned to him. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can _smell _the crazy on him."

At that, Thor stood up to his full height-which was _not _inconsiderable-and pinned a glare on the shorter brown-haired man. "Have a care how you speak," he snapped. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother." Leah's eyebrows shot up again-she had _not_been expecting that. Coulson had, apparently, forgotten a few things. First off, the two looked _nothing _alike-Thor was big and blonde with a rugged face and Loki was wiry, black-haired, and sharp-featured. Secondly, wasn't Loki...well...the bad guy? Was Thor entirely dedicated to putting Loki in containment?

"He killed eighty people in two days," Romanov commented dryly from the table, slowly raising her eyes to Thor's. The god shifted slightly under her gaze.

"He's adopted," he admitted. Leah snorted. Could've fooled her, she thought sarcastically.

"Iridium, what did they need the iridium for?" Banner muttered, tapping his fingers in a staccato rhythm on the table.

"It's a stabilizing agent." Leah almost rolled her eyes as Stark's voice rang out from behind her. She did, however, turn with an eyebrow raised, and he grinned at her before moving past with a pat on her head. She growled under her breath and batted his hand away, only making him grin wider.

"Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD," he elaborated. He then patted Thor on the arm, saying indulgently, "No hard feelings, Point Break, you've got a mean swing." He turned back to Banner, who was watching with amusement.

"Also, it means the portal can open as wide, or stay open as long, as Loki wants." The thought sent a shiver down Leah's spine, but she covered by folding her arms across her chest and leaning her weight on one leg. Stark turned abruptly, walking down a small projection into the sea of monitors, calling up screens and talking under his breath to himself. Suddenly, his arm jabbed towards one particular agent, and he called out "That man is playing Galaga!"

Leah started slightly at the sudden outburst, but snorted again when she saw that yes, indeed, one of SHIELD's oh-so-contained agents was, in fact, playing Galaga. "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did," Stark finished, finally getting to the screen he wanted at the bridge station. After a second, though, he clapped a hand to one eye and turned slightly. Leah's lips jerked up on one side at the impression of what was obviously meant to be the Director.

"How does Fury even _see _these?" Stark asked, and a brown-haired woman standing with an irritated expression on her face responded.

"He turns," her voice as dry as a desert, lips pursed and brow furrowed. Agent Hill, then, according to Coulson's description.

"Sounds exhausting," Stark shot right back. He spent another second flipping through things he probably shouldn't be looking at before turning back to the group.

"The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source-a high energy density, something to kick start the cube," he went on.

"When did you become an expert on thermonuclear dynamics?" Hill asked, shifting her weight in irritation.

"Last night," Stark retorted. Leah had an ever-growing sense of foreboding that this was what he was always like. He was, after all, Tony Stark. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers...am I the only one who did the reading?" he asked, a falsely plaintive note in the question. Leah rolled her eyes. Yes, because one had _plenty_ of time to read scientific papers when there was an hour's space between joining and now.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Rogers cut in patiently, blatantly ignoring Stark's jibes. Leah could already see the tension between them, and smiled to herself.

"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Banner answered him, face twisting into a speculative frown. Stark, however, zeroed in on the scientific terminology like a homing missile.

"Unless Selvig found a way to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect," he said, and Leah could hear the testing in the words. Oddly enough, however, his gaze flickered between Doctor Banner and herself, for reasons Leah couldn't really understand. It wasn't as if she had indicated she was at their level of intelligence in the short time she and Stark had known each other-she _was__, _but that didn't mean he should know about it. In fact, she completely understood the scientific discussion they were having-understood it and knew the next steps, where the conclusion was headed. She was fairly smart, yeah, even if it was book-smarts in this particular field-when she was...ah...learning this kind of information, she didn't exactly have opportunities for experimentation. Leah had learned thermonuclear dynamics and all their ramifications by the time she was eleven-but where she had learned it couldn't be considered a good learning environment in any sense of the word.

She steered herself away from such thoughts immediately. She didn't need this right now. She was fully prepared to let Banner continue the conversation, but now he was staring at her curiously as well, as though he couldn't quite figure out why Stark was looking at her so. So Leah squared her shoulders and stepped up to the plate.

"Then he could just head to any reactor on the planet, right? Heavy ion fusion and all that, he could just do it anywhere," she said cautiously. The only person in the room who _didn__'__t _turn to her with a surprised look was Stark, and that was...worrying. "What?" she asked irritably, glaring at Steve whose mouth had actually fallen open. He didn't answer her, just shook his head, blushed slightly, and looked at his feet.

The billionaire grinned at both her and Banner, before saying, "Finally, people who speak English." Rogers looked around, confused, before mumbling, "Is that what just happened?"

Stark shook hands with Banner, looking him in the eye seriously. "It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into a giant green rage monster."

He said it so casually that Leah had to double check that she had, in fact, heard him call the patient Doctor Banner a 'giant green rage monster.' Yes, Coulson had told her about the Hulk-which didn't make her _too _nervous, really, it didn't, not at all-but to hear Stark mention it so randomly and without any trace of beating around the bush was kind of a shock. It was obviously just as surprising to Banner, who jumped slightly before smiling wryly and saying, "Thanks...I think."

"Doctor Banner is only here to help us track the cube. I was hoping you might join him." Leah jumped as Fury arrived from...somewhere, probably highly classified, and gave Stark a deeply disapproving look before turning to glare at Leah. She glared right back, annoyed-was he going to be watching her _all _the time? That would get infuriating _fast__. _

They were silent for a moment, Leah and Fury glaring daggers at each other, as Stark watched them with an interesting combination of awe and trepidation on his face and Rogers merely looked between them in confusion. After another moment of deadly looks, the Captain cleared his throat.

"Let's start with that sick of his," he suggested. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon."

Fury looked away from Leah to him, and she gave herself a mental pat on the back for making him be the first person to look away the second time in a row. "I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube," Fury responded. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

Thor looked bemused. "Monkeys? I do not understand-"

"I do!" proclaimed Rogers. Leah turned to stare at him, and he shrank back into his chair. "I understood that reference."

"Aaanyway," Stark said after a decidedly awkward silence.

"Stark, I want you and Banner hunting down that cube," Fury said, fixing his eye on the billionaire who waved away his stare and walked off with the doctor, talking animatedly about something science-y. He merely nodded to Romanoff, who beckoned Rogers and Thor after her, and Leah was left standing alone before Fury turned to her with that same glare.

"Perhaps you'd like to study the team's files in your quarters, Smith?" he asked, but it didn't really sound like a question. Leah squinted at him in disbelief. Did he seriously just tell her to go to her room?

"I'm good, thanks," she responded cheerfully, and made to follow Stark and Banner-at least that route would provide some entertainment. The Director's glare took on a cold edge.

"Then you should accompany Agent Hill down to medical. We're going to have to run a few tests," he said, and that was _definitely _not a question.

Leah froze, then turned, very slowly, to give Fury the slow, icy smile she had given the last person who said they needed to 'run a few tests'-that person had ended up twitching his way into a heart-attack fueled death with burns all over his body.

What Leah really, _really _wanted to say was 'go fuck yourself,' but she guessed that wouldn't exactly put her in good standing with the numerous armed agents on the bridge. So instead, she continued to look coldly at him until he looked away. She watched impassively as he suddenly yanked something out of his ear-his comm unit had just given an ear-shatteringly loud burst of static, she believed. He shouted at her back as she walked away.

"Smith! Get back he-"

Fury's words were cut off as the door whooshed shut behind her, stalking her way towards her room. Her boots pounded against the metal floor and agents stumbled out of her way, but she didn't acknowledge the sparks flying from her heels. Literally. Her feet took her back to her room by the sheer power of memorization, and she slammed the door behind her.

Goddamn. This wasn't any better. She had managed to keep it under well enough control when Romanov had led her to the first cell, but there was something about the finality of the door closing on this tiny, sterile room that had Leah immediately opening it again. She left it open just a crack as she paced nervously around the edges.

She really hated giving Fury anything he could use against her-because she had no doubts he was watching the security footage right now-but pacing was better than curling up in a corner and shaking.

_White __room__, __white __door__, __she __couldn__'__t __open __it __from __the __inside__, __she __couldn__'__t __even __feel __the __wiring __through __the __walls__, __she __was __too __small __to __do __anything __about __it__, __too __little __to __do __anything __but __hide __under __the __bed__. __She __could __hide __all __she __wanted__, __but __the __monsters __still __came__. __Came __to __grab __her by __the __wrist __and __take __her __to __pain __and __needles __and __fire __in __her __veins __until __she __couldn__'__t __take __it __anymore __and __she __**screamed**__...__not __that __it __made __any __difference__. __And __at __the __end__, __she __was __thrown __back __into __a __white __room __and __left__, __left __to __lick __her __wounds __and __become __a __little __bit __more __broken__._

And then she really needed to get out of this room.

The door practically slammed open as she burst into the hallway, making an agent at the end of the hallway drop the files she had been carrying. She ignored the slight gasp of the junior agent and spun to the right, feet carrying her down the hall before she was even really conscious of what she was doing. She made sure to stay clear of the bridge, skirting around it, and she found herself on the R&D levels.

Huh. Well, she had meant to come here originally, right?

She found the one with Stark and Banner in it easily enough, peeking unobtrusively through glass-paned walls until she found them. Leah could feel the energy all around her, electronic devices part of the walls themselves, not to mention the technology whirring away in the labs, and took calm from it, eventually beating back the memories.

Instead of dealing with the complex keypads and scanners by the door, she poked it a few times and the door slid open obligingly. Banner looked up in surprise and confusion, but Stark barely glanced at her, grinning as he looked back to his screen.

"Thought you'd be around," he said, clearing a space on one of the tables with a sweep of his arm. Leah took it without hesitation, hopping up and folding her legs Indian-style and leaning her elbows on her knees, cheeks in her hands.

"Fury asked me to go for some tests. I, uh, disagreed. So now I'm hiding from his one-eyed rage," she said simply, and Stark grinned at her again.

"What did you _do_?" he asked in a mock-horrified tone of voice. Leah rolled her eyes and shrugged a bit.

"Fucked around with his comm a bit, nothing major." Stark looked at her, vaguely annoyed.

"I'll have you know those comm units are _my _tech, and Fury makes me pay for damage, and sometimes I don't pay in money," he said, but he sounded more amused than actually irritated. Leah just snorted. How, exactly, she had progressed into the 'letting into labs' and 'easy banter' stage with Stark, she didn't know, but she was thankful she had one teammate that wasn't instantly suspicious.

Banner looked between the two of them before breaking in with an almost apologetic tone. "I'm sorry, do the two of you know each other?"

"Oh, no, I'm just fully aware that I could destroy his suit with a thought and therefore completely secure around him," Leah answered cheerfully. Banner looked at her with wide eyes and Stark glared at her.

"I'll have you know that this kid is a special case, my tech is generally, in a word, awesome," he retorted. Banner's eyebrows raised, but he didn't say anything. "Don't call me kid," she said, almost absently by this point.

Leah watched Stark from her position on the table, commenting on his work here and there and getting equally scathing responses. She spoke to Banner occasionally too, but her questions to him were more work-oriented rather than things like 'your code is stupid and you are too.' She may not be able to manipulate software the same way she dealt with hardware, but she knew a thing or two.

After about fifteen minutes, Doctor Banner seemed to finally work up the courage to ask her the question she had seen burning behind his eyes since she had explained the reason for her ease around Stark.

"Sorry for asking, Leah-" he looked at her in apology for using her first name before she shrugged in acceptance, "-but why exactly are you on the team? I mean, what is it that you do?" he corrected hastily, worried she would take offense at his words.

Leah merely grinned, and raised a hand. "Don't Hulk out on me, okay?" she joked, and saw the flash of surprise pass across his face. She knew that feeling-not being used to having people joke about it, was he?

She ignored Stark who muttered "That is totally my phrase," and pointed a finger at the floor across the room-if it was anybody else, she would have done it next to his feet, but she didn't feel like pushing her luck.

A crack of lightning zapped across the space, thin but bright, originating at her fingertip and burning a small scorch mark into the metal. It was gone as soon as it had appeared, but it made Stark take a step back and Banner leap about a foot into the air.

Leah watched him in concern as he took slow, deep breaths, and felt badly. "Sorry," she said quickly, and he waved a hand at her.

"It's fine, I'm fine," he answered just as fast, and appeared to get himself under control before even the slightest tinge of green passed across his skin. Oh, God. Fury was going to skin her alive for this. She could hear him already, screaming at her about 'threat to Dr. Banner' and 'risking the lives of all the personnel on this ship.' Ah well. She didn't really care.

"Does that explain things?" she asked wryly, dropping her chin into her hands again as she watched Banner walk over to the scorch mark and scuff it with his toe. He chuckled quietly and returned to his station. Stark took this opportunity to present her silently with a bag of blueberries. She accepted one equally wordlessly.

"Mostly," Banner replied. "Electronic manipulation, correct?"

"I guess. Mainly I just give people heart attacks and mess with Stark's phone," she said flippantly. Banner raised an eyebrow. but smiled, and Stark made a small noise of absentminded disapproval, focused on his work.

"Where do you get your energy from?" the doctor asked, interested. Leah shifted a bit, and Banner opened his mouth to apologize for prying before she waved a hand at him. She considered the question for a second before she shrugged.

"I don't really know. All I know is that it is finite, even if my limits are pretty high. I can...uh...'recharge,' for lack of a better word, by grabbing onto a battery or an electrical socket or something like that, or just sleeping. It's rare that I run out of energy, though," she added, glaring into a security camera she could FEEL was there, entirely aware that she was giving SHIELD information on her weaknesses.

"If you're giving that unholy look to the security camera, my AI can filter anything important out before SHIELD sees it," Stark commented dryly. Leah turned to him with a surprised look, and he raised his eyebrows. "What? Me and Dr. Banner here might be exchanging the secrets to world domination." Well. This changed things. Stark and Banner, at least, she felt she could trust-a thousand times more than she could trust SHIELD-not to use information against her.

Then she caught on to the rest of the sentence and her eyes went wide. "Wait, you have an _AI_?"

Stark looked at her for a second, before saying slowly, "Yes?"

Leah peered at him. "One that can hack into SHIELD's security systems?"

His look turned slightly more worried. "Yeeeeees?" he asked again, drawing it out suspiciously.

She stared at him before saying solemnly, "That. Is awesome."

Stark grinned at her and offered her another blueberry. She squinted at him for a second, before shrugging, thinking _why the hell not._

What? Okay, the Pavlov's reward system was completely obvious, but hey. Free fruit.

* * *

**Okay, so, first off: timeline. I imagine there are a few days in between Loki arriving on the helicarrier and Barton's attack on it, so there's going to be a bit of downtime in which we learn some more about Leah's past and her as a character :D Not to mention more lovely, mind-boggling interactions between her and Mr. Stark _oh god_...and fruit.**

**Second: Does anyone have access to a full Avengers script? I have a website I'm using for quotes, but I'm not sure it's 100% accurate or complete. Any help would be great. Thanks!**

**Remember: more reviews = happier author. Love you all.**

**-Hopp**


	7. Chapter 7

**Just to warn you guys-there's some triggery stuff in here, vague mentions of torture. Just warning you.**

* * *

Leah stayed in the lab for hours, talking mindlessly with Tony and Dr. Banner. She 'earned' herself the entire bag of blueberries by becoming the power source for the coffee machine, since all the electrical sockets in the room were taken up by slightly more vital machinery. Stark pulled another bag from...somewhere, but still.

Leah toyed with the three-prong plug in her hands, feeling just a small sense of energy loss from the events of the entire past couple of days. Powering a coffee machine wasn't going to make her faint, as Stark seemed to think-even as he sipped his coffee, he kept flicking glances at her like he expected her to drop at any moment.

"I'm not going to keel over because of a coffee machine," she said at last, irritated.

"Oh, I didn't think you would. I'm considering taking back the blueberries, I think giving them all away at once defeats the purpose," Stark replied flippantly. Leah threw a blueberry at his head and popped two more in her mouth.

"Denied," she said around them. He snorted and turned back to his work. After a minute or two, she dropped the coffee machine plug and leaned over. Stark made no move to shield his work from her, even though it appeared to be a series of SHIELD files that had 'classified' all over them.

"It's considered rude to hack into secure files," she said mildly.

"And you would know, wouldn't you?" he shot back, not shifting his gaze at all. Leah privately admitted that was true and peered at the files, catching glimpses of weapons plans and mentions of the Tesseract, but Stark moved the files too fast for her to fully understand what they were about. However, just the mention of the Tesseract anywhere near weapons design made her nervous. There were so many ways it could be used for evil.

"The Tesseract would be useful to you, wouldn't it?" Stark said out of the blue, and she looked at him in surprise, only to be met with his shrewd gaze. "An endless energy source. Your power would become limitless."

"One, you sound like a Jedi master," Leah pointed out, "Two, even though you're right, you think I'm going against Fury, all of SHIELD, Loki, and whoever else wants it? No way in hell," she snorted. She considered it privately, though. To be honest, that was why she had been so interested in the Tesseract when Coulson first told her about it. It would, in essence, make sleep unnecessary, and she could do things she'd never been able to do before, and do them for as long as she wanted. Banner watched impassively from where he, at least, was actually working.

"C'mon, kid, don't try to tell me you've never considered it," Tony said disbelievingly. She started to shrug, then nodded reluctantly.

"How could I _not_ consider it? When you've lived the life I have, you consider every possibility. And yeah, unlimited power is pretty attractive, but it's not something I trust myself with."

She surprised _herself_ by saying it, so she half-expected the slightly surprised look on Stark's face. It passed though, and he looked at her piercingly for a second before leaning back and returning to his work.

"Tell me about yourself, kid," he said absently, although Leah whipped around instantly to stare at him with a combination of ice and suspicion in her glare. He waved a hand expansively, not even looking up from where he was frowning at the screen. "I'm serious. What's your favorite color? What's your favorite flavor of ice cream? Shirt size? Where'd you get your gloves? Thing you want the most right now?"

The questions he rattled off were decidedly odd and completely unbalancing. She had been expecting another interrogation, a round of questions meant to get her to reveal information, but these seemed...harmless. And not harmless like Stark was working towards something big, but honestly and harmlessly curious.

Leah's lips twitched in a genuinely surprised smile. "Yellow, triple chocolate Denali moose tracks, women's small, the basement of the HQ of a Satanic cult, and socks," she replied evenly, ignoring Banner's slight choke when she mentioned the cult. Even Stark seemed surprised by that, although he soon dissolved into guffaws, abandoning any pretense of working.

"A cult? Really? You couldn't do better than that when coming up with a ridiculous story?" he chuckled. Leah raised an eyebrow and gave him a deadpan expression.

"I'm telling the absolute truth." His eyes widened by a fraction.

"...oh I have _got_ to know the story on that one," he eventually said, and Banner chimed in with his own "me too."

Leah shrugged nonchalantly. "They had good beer. Also, double A batteries in the fridge. The gloves came third, I saw them on the cold, dead hands of a virgin sacrifice and just _had_ to have them," she drawled. Stark and Banner both froze and stared at her with something approaching terror before she relented.

"That last was a bald-faced lie, by the way," she said cheerfully, and the sighs of relief were visible. Not that she wasn't flattered they thought her capable of it, but still. "I traded for them from some drunk chick. She got a bottle cap out of the deal." Leah wiggled her fingers, feeling the supple flex of old leather and the stretch of the knuckle holes. "They help with the detail work, cut down on the power, and at the same time, amplify it if I'm focusing on the knuckles. The only way these gloves could be any better was if they were armored, really," she admitted. "I used to strap on brass knuckles over them, but that's way too clunky."

Stark got a speculative look in his eye that quite frankly worried her. He opened his mouth to say something, but Leah spoke over him. "Anyway, they dull down the power enough that I can do pretty much whatever I want with my hands without giving myself a heart attack."

Judging by the way Banner and Stark's eyes bugged a bit, this wasn't something that happened on a regular basis for other people. She backpedaled immediately. "I mean, it's not like it happens a _lot_, but sometimes the shocks get a bit too much, my heart can deal normally, but if I get a sudden jolt...? Oh stop looking at me like that, I'm perfectly fine," she snapped. Banner jerked a bit and apologized, but Stark poked her in the chest, making her smack his hand.

"Heart attacks, you say? Upset rhythm, I'm going to guess, atrial fibrillation, what fixes it?" he asked, interested. Leah frowned a bit, thinking.

"Usually I just slap a battery to my chest, it jolts it back to normal, I guess," she said cautiously. She didn't claim to be an expert on the inner workings of cardiac arrest. Stark tipped his head back a bit, eyes glazing for half a second before he was turning to another screen, and she saw him open a new file before he angled the hanging glass away from her. Leah saw him muttering under his breath, fingers dancing over the screen and sketching. She assumed he had lost interest and rolled her eyes.

"Just a question, Leah," Banner started, and she turned her attention to him. "Do you ever get electrical burns?"

Her face took on a twisted smile, one just a shade away from becoming a grimace, and she reached up to her neck. Leah tugged the leather collar of her jacket away from her neck, tilting her head the opposite direction, and Banner spied the burn. It wasn't red, more of a muted pink, shiny in the fluorescent light, but still noticeable. The burn scar crept up from under her jacket, from the strap of her tank top almost all the way up the side of her neck. There was a main strand that branched into a million tiny points, fading from the pink of the base. Banner walked over to get a closer look, eyebrows furrowing in scientific curiosity. His fingers fluttered for a second before dropping back to his side, and Leah was thankful that he didn't ask to touch.

She had a lot more scars than this one, but she wasn't sharing those.

"This is the only one I've ever gotten. Pretty sure I got hit with lightning when I was...uh, lemme think, I think I was five? Got this one from it. I never got a burn from lightning or electricity again, no matter how much power I was using." To be honest, she was pretty grateful for that, since her hands would be a goddamn mess by now. It was true, even if she did have burns from...other things. She rubbed her wrists absently, feeling the almost-invisible shiny pink flesh in a band around them.

"Interesting," was all Banner said, nodding to her and returning to his work station.

More time passed, and eventually Leah graduated to a tablet of her own. She was pretty sure Stark had only shoved one at her when he got tired of her turning his screen on and off. She was fiddling around with it, feeling her way through the wiring, trying to find all the possible functions without turning it on. It was a challenge for her.

She glanced up at one point, and was shocked to see the time-pretty damn close to midnight.

"Well, damn. Where does the time go?" she asked of no one in particular, unfolding her legs and hopping down from the tabletop. Leah set the tablet down in the spot she had previously vacated and spent a minute stretching out stiff muscles and popping joints. Stark made a pouty face at her.

"I feel abandoned," he whined, and she grinned at him cheerfully.

"All the more reason to leave," she shot back, swiveling her head on her neck and wincing when there was a loud crack.

"And where exactly could you go that is more interesting than here?" He said, sweeping an arm around the room. "We have top of the line tech, we have thrilling conversation, and our own personal jolly green giant!" Banner looked up, shocked, but Leah tensed.

"My room," she said shortly. Banner looked at her at the change in tone, and Stark's expression changed in an instant, going from humorous and sarcastic to analyzing, speculative, and-unbelievably-concerned in the space of a second. Leah went on. "Yes, a tiny white box with nothing but a bed is-" _Terrifying. Associated with a large amount of pain. A reminder of most of my fucking childhood, which is really something I'd rather forget._ "-wonderful." She swallowed past the dryness in her throat.

"Really," Stark said, eyes narrowed. Leah glared right back, but she knew it wasn't that strong.

"Really." And with that, she turned on her heel and fumbled her way out the door, cursing her stupid, stupid weakness.

Somehow, she managed to find her way back through the steel halls, nodding at the agent or two she passed. She paused with her hand on the keypad, swallowing again and finally keying in her code.

Leah edged into her room, still eyeing the door with trepidation. She left it open a half inch again-it was childish, and stupid, but she really couldn't stand having it click shut or-god forbid-lock. She kicked herself mentally before turning to her bed.

Her eyebrows shot up when she noticed the package lying on top of the blanket. Well...not really a package. Lifting up the folded fabric, she barked out a round of surprised laughter when she realized what she was holding-a pair of sunshine yellow knee socks. Still chuckling to herself, sufficiently distracted from the room, she sat on the bed and began unclasping her boots. She heard a crunch underneath her, and pulled out a piece of paper from underneath her.

_Apparently not important enough for the AI to filter. -Coulson_ was written in perfectly even handwriting, and Leah snorted. She pulled the socks on, pushing them down to where they would just barely peek above her boots instead of going all the way up to her knees, and wiggled her toes. Well, they were certainly comfortable, although they'd make the smooth floors slippery.

Determinedly focusing on the socks and the fact that she might have underestimated Coulson, she pulled the thin blanket back from the cot. She pulled off her jacket and her gloves, folding them neatly in a pile next to her boots. That was _all _she was taking off, though, no matter how small the camera six inches away from the top right corner of her room was. As she laid her head on her pillow, determined to get some sleep, she shorted it out with barely a twitch. She grit her teeth and closed her eyes.

* * *

_There was little she could do but wait. Well, less wait, more cower under the bed and hope that this was the last day. That someone would take pity on her. That it would just **stop.**_

_It never happened, though. She wished, day after day, that the door would open for her, but when it did, she was scrambling to beg it closed again. The white walls of her room were pristine, except when she was thrown in after a particular bad day and she'd accidentally smear her blood on them._

_Her bed was the only constant. Small, small enough that she was quickly outgrowing it, and bolted to the floor. Entirely plastic, unfortunately. The single blanket was blue, the only thing of color in most of her world. Except for the blood, of course._

_When she was littler-seven or so-she would try and hide under the blanket, believing it would protect her. She eventually gave up on the thing, choosing to hide under the bed, a real, concrete protection. Every time she was taken back to her room, without fail, she would crawl under the bed, no matter how bad damaged-both mentally and physically-she was. She stored her treasures under there, too; the pen she got out of a scientist's pocket; the scrap of paper, slightly bloodied, that had stuck to her shirt the last time she tried to fight back; the shard of glass that had gotten stuck under her skin. That one she had had to pull out by herself when she was nine. The only reason she still had it was that she had managed to conceal the pain until she got back to her room._

_The bed never hurt her. Never grabbed her by the arm to strap her down, never sliced her open to see what was inside. Never drove glass under her skin until she did what it wanted or tried to make her kill someone. It didn't confuse her time and again with an endless web of lies that always, always made her do what it wanted. Didn't have her push the button that ended someone's life by the time she was ten. Didn't hold her underwater until she felt like she was dying and that finally, finally she would be free. The bed didn't do anything, and that was the best she had._

_The bed was her only haven when the walls started to close in around her, or when she let herself cry. In the morning it would be better, she promised herself, and fell asleep to dreams almost as bad as reality. But the morning burned just as much as it had the day before._

Leah jerked herself awake, the choking sound in her ears coming from her own throat. It had been a long, long time ago when she taught herself not to scream in her sleep. She rocketed into an upright position, chest heaving and eyes wide. Her surroundings weren't helping her, white walls glaring back and blanket horribly, horribly blue. It took her much longer than usual-almost five minutes-to start believing that she was out. It had been a long time ago. There was no one coming to bring her to another endless round of torture.

And damn if the aftermath didn't hurt too. She was fucking weak. The fact that she couldn't protect herself when she was asleep was no excuse. It had almost been three fucking years-she should be over it. So what if it was eight years in a place darker than most people could dream of? She was stronger than this.

At least, she thought she was.

Leah took a deep breath and cast off the last remnants of the dream-which had really just been an influx of feeling and sensation, not any concrete moment, so it shouldn't be as terrifying as it was-to turn to her pile. She dressed more by feel than thought, tucked her jacket under her arm and was out the door of her horribly, horribly white room before she remembered.

Where were her gloves?

She forced herself back, but there wasn't much to look for. It was quite obvious that they weren't there, and she stood in the hall for a second. She started walking towards the labs almost unconsciously, checking the time equally absently. Just past three AM. She'd slept for bare moments, then. Hopefully Stark hadn't made Banner Hulk out yet. Then she stopped.

Stark.

The conversation last night.

Her gloves.

Son of a _bitch._

Her steps resumed with renewed fervor, her glare scattering the agents before her once again. She didn't even bother with the keypad this morning, the door whooshing open instantly in front of her. Banner glanced up and then quickly swerved out of her way. Stark, on the other hand, was bent over something on the lab table instead of a screen.

"Stark!"

His head snapped towards her over his shoulder, and his expression went from smirking to trepidation lightning fast. "Heeeeey, kid, why are you looking at me like that, is this about the gloves?" Her glare got darker. "Banner, help," Stark whined. Banner chuckled from his spot.

"You're on your own, Stark," he said, and returned to his work.

"Where are my goddamn gloves, tinman?" Leah growled. Well, she was sufficiently distracted, anyway. Stark rolled his eyes.

"Tinman? Really? Was that the best you could come up with? In retaliation, you are hereby proclaimed 'Zappy' for the day," he announced. Leah's lips twitched, but then she saw what was in his hands.

Her gloves, for one, but more worringly, a screwdriver. Her eyes got a whole lot narrower and Stark's face went a whole lot paler.

"Staark," she singsonged sweetly. What little color was left in Stark's face disappeared. "Have you been experimenting on my gloves?"

"Uh," he said eloquently. His eyes darted from side to side as if looking for an escape, before his hand whipped out. Two black objects were headed for her face, and she caught them automatically, her glare never leaving Stark's face. He squirmed.

"You_ said_ you wanted them armored!" he cried eventually, half-climbing, half-walking around the table, putting it between them. Leah blinked in surprise, looking down at the objects in her hands.

They certainly looked to be her gloves. Except now, instead of simple black leather that ended at the last joint of her fingers with holes on her knuckles, they were now veritable weapons. Some kind of armored plating covered them, joints strategically placed so as not to limit mobility. The knuckles were now covered with a second layer of plating that looked to be steel and raised into sharp-looking points. Turning a glove over, an incredulous look on her face, she spotted some kind of device in the palm-round, and what appeared to be a double ring of metal with some wires connecting the two. She slipped one glove on and knew they were hers-the leather was perfectly supple and rather obviously old. The new armoring wasn't clunky or even stiff, and the palm insert was small enough that it didn't make much of a difference.

"You did this?" Leah asked slowly, flicking a glance to a now-grinning Stark before returning to study the gloves.

"Yup," Stark said proudly. "Overnight, too, if you call three hours a night. The new plates shouldn't damage mobility, and you can take out the amplifiers if you want."

"Amplifiers?"

"Palm things," he said, waving a hand. "They should focus the electricity a bit more, cut down on bleed-off when you're trying for a bolt. Fully removable," he added, watching her face carefully. She looked up at him, eyes wide and confused.

"Why?" she asked eventually. It was his turn to look confused, before she saw what looked like understanding flash across his brown eyes for some unidentifiable reason and then he shrugged.

"Made sense, if you're gonna be in combat," he said flippantly, and she eyed him for another second before shrugging in turn and pulling them off again. She pulled them through a belt loop on her jeans and moved farther into the room. If she absently took the blueberry he put in her hands and popped it in her mouth, ignoring his smirk, she wasn't going to say anything.

"So did you plan on not wearing shoes, or was that an accident?" Tony asked casually as she occupied her spot on the table. She was just folding her legs under her, and they snapped back out as she stared at her feet.

...yup. She had forgotten to put her boots on, and was wearing only the bright yellow socks Coulson had given her last night.

"...planned," she said finally, not even acknowledging the amused look he gave her. They lapsed into comfortable silence then, Bruce and Tony working at the program to locate the Tesseract-or not, in Tony's case-and Leah getting the feel for various electronics to entertain herself. She was pretty sure Fury was going to arrive soon enough and try and drag her out, but she really didn't care.

"So."

They'd been silent for so long-the clock now read around 5 AM-that Stark's single word made her jump. And that tone worried her. She turned slowly to look at him, still working on his screen, while Banner merely looked up then back down over at his table.

"I was in your room last night-"

"And if that is not one of the creepiest sentences I have ever heard, I would be extremely surprised, do not say that again, and do not ever fucking break into my room again, I will castrate you with a rusty spoon," Leah growled, although there was no heat behind her words.

"I didn't break in," he protested. "You left the door open!" She tensed ever so slightly, and didn't argue the point, which only made him look at her shrewdly.

"You're not an easy sleeper," he said carefully.

Fuck. Goddamn fuckity fuck. He really had to be there, didn't he, when she was probably thrashing and sounding like she was fucking choking to death because it had been a long time since she was secure enough to scream and long enough since she had a nightmare to make that one especially bad. But goddamn, she was not having this discussion with him, she had no reason to trust him-the fact that she _did_ was irrelevant right now-and she was _so not discussing this._ So she should deflect, like she usually did; make some comment that would explain it away and make Stark smirk and snipe right back leave it alone.

"That's none of your fucking business," was what snapped out instead, and Banner looked up in surprise from across the room where he was scanning Loki's sceptre. Stark, though, looked like he had just hit pay dirt, and looked up into her eyes. What he saw, though, must have been slightly more dangerous than he was anticipating because he recoiled slightly and held his hands up in surrender.

"Alright, alright," he said placatingly, and she glared at him-a real one, heated and sharp and yes, angry-before he raised his eyebrows. "Fine, no more sneaking into your room at night. In return you stop giving me that look, that is an 'I will end you' look that rivals Fury's, you're going to give me an aneurysm."

She didn't smile, but she did drop her glare and turn back to the thing in her hands. Some kind of scanner. Leah set it carefully next to her and laid her hands in her lap. She ignored the fact they were trembling and the tiniest possible arc of energy zipped from her thumb to her pointer finger. Stark, however, noticed, and snapped his mouth shut. He didn't lean away though.

She heard the word "Zappy" muttered under his breath, though, and turned back to level another glare at him. Her anger had died off, though, since he didn't look like he was going to mention it again.

"Stark, I swear to _God_ I will-"

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's report on the Tesseract," Banner cut in from across the room, making both Leah and Stark stare at him. He said it so mildly and loudly enough that Leah was one-hundred percent sure he had intentionally interrupted her. She closed her mouth.

"It's gonna take weeks to process," he finished blandly, not even raising his eyes.

Stark looked at him interestedly for a second before answering. "If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops."

And they were officially venturing into territory Leah was not well-versed in. She tuned them out and dropped her chin in her hands as Stark walked over to Banner's end of the room, dragging a screen with him.

"All I packed was a toothbrush," Banner said wryly, responding to whatever Stark had just said.

"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land," Stark said, surprisingly earnestly. Banner snorted, poking at his screens.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem," he said, flushing slightly and bowing his head. Stark snorted back, and Leah looked at them in interest. Her 'Stark is about to do something stupid' warning started blaring when he picked up a short metal rod from the table.

"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises." And with that, he jabbed the doctor in the side, the rod emitting a mild zapping noise. Leah felt the jolt in the air from across the room.

"Ow," Banner said, jerking slightly, but his tone was more surprised than reproachful.

"Rude," Leah said mildly. Banner looked between her and Stark oddly.

"Nothing?" Stark asked, leaning in to look Banner in the eyes. If Leah didn't know any better, she'd say he was whining. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

"If it's weed, I'm offended you didn't offer to share," Leah put in drolly. "Actually, for that matter, if it's bongo drums, I'm still offended."

The doctor flushed, but rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to reply.

"Are you nuts?"

_That_ was a new voice. And yes, she really needed to work on her observational skills if she hadn't noticed that Captain America, in all his red white and blue glory, had entered the lab, and was now stalking over to where Stark was watching him with something approaching trepidation, as if he couldn't figure out why Rogers was in his lab. Leah snagged another bag of blueberries off of Stark's desk-they just...appeared, she would swear that was Tony's real superpower-and popped another in her mouth. Stark made a face at her, and the Captain's expression grew annoyed.

"Is everything a joke to you?" he asked, and by his tone Leah judged him to be a combination of 'polite Steve Rogers' and 'dealing with Tony Stark Steve Rogers.'

"Funny things are," Tony stated, pointing the prod at him.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor," Rogers said angrily, belatedly turning to the doctor with a slightly apologetic tone.

Banner appeared to withdraw slightly, shifting from between Stark and the Captain. "No, it...it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle...pointy things," he added, looking at Stark with something like fond annoyance.

"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut," the billionaire proclaimed, clapping a hand to Bruce's shoulder.

Yup. Steve was definitely annoyed now. "And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

Tony fixed the Captain with a look and waved a hand at his screen over by where Leah was still sitting on the table, where she could see the Tesseract-finding program still chugging along. And...another program. One that was a lot less acceptable by SHIELD standards. Leah snorted as she looked through the lines of file names scrolling down the screen.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in, and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us?" Tony said, gesturing with his hands to the Captain's increasingly suspicious face. "I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

Leah pulled over the screen, noting absently how easily it moved to her. The progress bar across the bottom indicated just how much of SHIELD's databases Stark had successfully infiltrated, and she was vaguely impressed to see that he was almost all the way through. She looked at Stark with some of that approval on her face. "Looks like you're doing pretty well at identifying variables, Stark," she said cryptically, making the Captain frown in confusion and Stark level a blinding grin at her.

"I'm called a genius for a reason, Zappy," he said flippantly, and she frowned at him for the nickname and opened her mouth to protest.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Rogers cut in, and all three of them turned a slow, disbelieving look on him. He flushed, but didn't back down.

"Actually, we _know_ he's hiding something. He's a spy," Leah said archly.

"Captain, he's _the_ spy," Stark said disbelievingly. "His _secrets_ have secrets." He pointed his stick at Banner. "It's bugging him too, isn't it?" He finished on a question, looking at Banner and the Captain turned to do the same.

"Uh...I just want to finish my work here and-"

"Doctor?" The Captain asked, looking at Banner, frowning. The doctor sighed and relented.

"'A warm light for all mankind to share', Loki's jab at Fury about the cube?" He said eventually, pulling his glasses off and wringing his hands nervously.

"I heard it," Rogers replied evenly.

"Well, I think that was meant for you," Banner said, pointing at Tony, who put a mockingly surprised hand to his chest. "Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."

Leah had heard about Stark Tower-who hadn't? She didn't even have a -house- and she had seen it on the news. "Powered by an arc reactor, right? It'll run itself for a year or so?" she asked. Rogers looked from her to Banner.

"Stark Tower? That big ugly-" Tony pinned the Captain with a glare, "...building in New York?"

Tony ignored Rogers and nodded at her. "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now," he preened, glancing at the soldier.

Bruce held up a finger. "So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" he asked, and Leah had to admit it made sense. If they really wanted to use the Tesseract as an energy source, why wouldn't they get the man who was both leading in clean energy and a freaking _genius_ to work on it? Something was up, and Leah kept looking through files. All of a sudden, though, a new set of files opened in front of her as they were unlocked one by one, piling up on top of each other. Her eyes were caught by one file name: Project Voltage. Something near her stomach twisted unpleasantly.

"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files," Stark said easily, and the Captain instantly argued back, but Leah wasn't really paying attention. She was staring at the file in front of her, confused and more than a little alarmed.

A new project, started by Fury himself in the last few days, when she had been spending all her time in the lab. She pulled one of the files to another screen easily, letting the decryption program work on her old one and reading through the new in more detail.

Her face got angrier and angrier and her hands started to spark, she was so furious. Her eyes caught words like 'electricity,' 'synapses,' 'inborn power,' 'Phase 2,' and worst of fucking all,_ 'weapon,'_ and no, no, _no,_ there were so many things wrong here, and she had a sneaking suspicion-fuck that, she _knew,_ without a doubt, that this was about her.

Tony and Rogers were still sniping at each other over her head, Banner just looking exasperated in the background, but he looked at her in concern when she snarled under her breath and shoved the screen away from her. She didn't even bother to make an explanation as she half-ran, half-stomped out of the lab.

"Leah?" she heard behind her, probably Tony, but she was already halfway down the hall. She yanked the gloves out of her belt loop, the new metal plates clinking together, and pulled them on, flexing her fingers. Miniature lightning bolts arced over the backs of her hands as she pulled the amplifiers off without looking down, thanking Stark mentally as they popped out easily. She stuffed them in a pocket and her hands went back to being fists at her sides, albeit more threatening now what with metal spikes along her knuckles. If people in front of her had scattered before, they got the fuck out of her way now, literally running in the other direction. Leah briefly wondered what Fury thought of that, and just as quickly decided she simply did not give a fuck. Especially not right now. She was going to _end_ Fury if she was right.

She usually was.

It took a while to get to the storage bay she wanted. She had to dodge out of sight numerous times, and had almost gotten caught once. She felt kind of bad for making one of the lights explode to distract the agent, and then she remembered her mission. Because even Stark's AI couldn't hack into hard copy files, and every third sentence in that file had mentioned a file and a crate number. All of that meant she was looking for paper.

The numerous levels of security weren't the problem-most of the doors veritably slammed open in front of her, the tougher ones took barely a punch of her fist before the wiring complied. She may have left a few dents in the walls-this new plating was way stronger than steel, apparently, and she had a feeling the knuckle spikes would rip through flesh easily enough if she wanted them to, and she thanked Stark mentally again-but, again, she really didn't give a damn what she did to Fury's ship.

The last door, though, posed a slight problem. Everything, and she really did mean everything, was encased in a thick layer of plastic to prevent shorting, not to mention back up locks upon back up locks, and even with all her built up fury, she couldn't get through. She tried coaxing, she tried forcing, she even took the gloves off and slammed as much power as she possibly could into the damn things but there were so many layers and layers of circuitry she burned out half and never even got to the rest. She could only feel that they were there, just beyond her power to reach.

Fuck.

Leah heard the footsteps behind her all of a sudden, much too close, she should have paid more attention to her surroundings, now she was going to have to knock an agent or four out and Fury would boot her ass off the ship and she'd fall to a watery death. She whipped around, newly gloved hand raised, fingers clenched around her palm, and instead she saw Steve.

He was still in uniform, white star bright in the middle of a blue field, and looked both suspicious and sheepish as he raised his hands. She lowered her hand slowly, narrowing her eyes, then turned back to the door.

"Captain, if you're going to stop me, I ask that you get on with it, I'm busy," she snarled, spinning and punching her hand into the opposite metal wall. Sparks flew from the scrape of the metal knuckles, but more worrying was the _crack_ that sounded and the yellow bolts that raced over the wall for a short distance.

"Steve, ma'am, and I'm not going to stop you," Rogers said quietly. Leah pushed off from the wall and stared at him. He flushed slightly, but squared his shoulders, and approached the door. Leah watched, slightly disbelieving, as he forced the door open with his bare hands. When she saw him straining to keep it open, she placed her hand on the inside edge. When she could get at the circuitry from the inside, it was _so_ much easier. The door opened fully and stayed there. Rogers nodded to her. Leah placed a hand on his chest and he tensed slightly, but he ignored it.

"Let me go first. I can get rid of any security cameras, and I'd rather not have you on them for the first few seconds," she explained, and he nodded reluctantly.

She stepped inside, and barely had to snap her fingers for there to be showers of sparks from the corners of the room. She walked further inside.

It really was huge. A giant warehouse-type room, filled to the ceiling with shelves upon shelves of crates. Rogers and Leah shared a look, then moved off in opposite directions. The Captain made a truly superhuman leap to the second floor catwalks. Leah, being entirely human and (mostly) unedited from the day she was born, snorted under her breath and started walking along the ground floor grating.

She heard the faint clunk and hiss of sealed crates being brute forced open, and she rolled her eyes._ This_ was circuitry she could deal with. She delicately placed a hand on the first crate, and it opened with barely a hitch.

Files. Stacks and stacks of files, but not the ones she needed. She scanned the first few and shut the crate again. She was keeping a list in her head-oh yes, she would remember this room, and every classified secret in it-but it wasn't what she was looking for.

Crates were opened and closed above her and in front of her too, but Leah still searched with a feral intensity. She was going to fucking find the files on 'Project Voltage,' and she was either going to fucking tear out Fury's other goddamn eye and shove it up his ass, or she was going to cool down because SHIELD managed to have _another_ "electrically-enabled mutant" on board.

But she was pretty sure this was going to take the route of the eye-ripping.

She tore through the crates, she knew the general area of the one she wanted, but she had been too damn angry to memorize the number like she usually did, and so she ripped them open now, tossing the lids to the side. Manila folders flew under her fingers, and then suddenly, suddenly, she was holding a file as thick as a binder in her hands with the words 'Project Voltage' freshly stamped across it in black letters.

She opened it, did not in any way acknowledge the way her fingers were trembling, and started reading, the clank of opened and closed crates above her.

By the time she was done, she was beyond furious. She was _murderous._

Leah stood, slowly, shakily, and felt every nerve in her body like it was a live wire. She felt the power crackling under her hands, begging, begging to be released, preferably into Director Fury. And it almost happened, too, lightning roiling over her fingers and partway up her arm before the leather of the jacket cooled it down, but her fingers, her metal plated fingers were snapping with it. Flashes of white-yellow light were thrown on the ground around her, and she gripped the file so hard it scorched.

There was definitely going to be eye-ripping.

She heard a slow intake of breath above her, and Steve's footsteps as he jumped down behind her. Leah turned abruptly, and Rogers actually stepped back at her expression.

"I found something," he said carefully, and her eyes dropped to the weapon in his hands. It looked like a normal black gun, slightly bulkier, but other than that, she couldn't see what was special about it. But Steve had that pinched tenseness under his eyes that she knew she sometimes got when people talked about running tests, and she decided not to ask. He peered closer at her face, and she shrugged past him.

"I need to...speak to Fury," she said shortly, and to her surprise, he didn't protest, just nodded sharply, a hard look in his eyes.

Once they were out of the restricted zones, her fingers still crackling, she grabbed the first agent she saw by the collar and asked very politely where Director Fury was. The agent only answered when Rogers gave him a look, and pointed down towards R&D.

So he was talking to Stark, then. Good. Tony, she knew, would back her up.

When Steve and Leah reentered the lab, the two were already arguing. Banner was still there, but he didn't seem to be taking part in the argument. Fury was finishing a statement.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," he said, patient but tired and annoyed, like he was talking to a recalcitrant toddler. Tony rolled his eyes, sitting on the edge of Banner's table. His sharp brown eyes turned to Leah as she came in, widening slightly as he took in her face, but narrowing again as he peered at the file in her hands.

"We are, the model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile," Banner argued, and the irritation in his tone caused Fury's shoulders to tense. The Director still hadn't turned around.

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss." Stark flipped a few things around on his screen, and turned to Fury with a falsely quizzical look. Underneath, though, Leah saw that same sharpness. "What _is_ Phase Two?" he asked pleasantly.

Steve moved to step forward, but Leah was faster. She stopped across the table from Fury, who turned at the sound of her boots.

"Phase Two is weapons, Fury, isn't it?" She asked dangerously, her voice low and cold and filled with the fury of eight long years. "Does Phase Two include _me_, _**sir**?_" The honorific was tagged on dripping with sarcasm, her mouth twisted in a snarl. "You say you want me because I have supernatural powers, because I can control lightning. Except that's not really why you want me here, Fury, is it?" she said, eyes narrowed, head cocked to the side. "You don't need me for the lightning. Thor's plenty good with that, and he comes with an added bonus of being a _god._ Stark can do everything I can with hardware, maybe even faster than I can, and he's the best hacker around. You know nothing about my fighting skills, you've got Steve for super-strength, he surpasses me by far, and Natasha for the up-close stuff anyway. So why do you _really_ need me, Fury?"

Leah stepped closer, in his face, lips tight and angry, and threw the folder on the table. A flood of images and hardcopy files spilled out, brain scans, reports, plans. "Because surely it couldn't be the fact that synapses are, quote," she pointed to a certain report, " 'just another kind of electricity,' Fury, could it? Because _surely_ you couldn't mean_ neural_ synapses, no, you couldn't _possibly_ mean I was going to be turned into a _weapon_? Train me into-"-she picked out another passage-"-'controlling mental responses at their source', hmm?"

She closed the distance between them, their faces barely half a foot apart. "Because I'm pretty sure you understand how I feel about that, Fury, and you wouldn't _dare_ to try this behind my back, would you? Because you're not _stupid,_ are you, Fury, this can't have anything to do with you, because if it does, I swear on whatever you find holy, I will sit back and watch while your world burns down around you."

Silence, resounding silence, greeted her words. Even Stark had shut up, and they were all staring at her in some kind of fear. Except for Fury. Fury was gritting his teeth, hand twitching for the gun at his side, but didn't answer. She realized she was leaning over the table, hands clenched at the sides, and she loosened them with a force of will.

Leah was _never_ going to be a weapon again. Not used for _anyone_. She'd die first.

Behind her, Rogers slammed the black gun he had been carrying to the table. "Phase Two is SHIELD used the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me," he said to Stark, voice as biting as she had ever heard it. The Director finally reacted, edging to the side so he wasn't pinned between Leah and Stark, and raised his hands placatingly.

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're-"

"I'm sorry, Nick, what were you lying?"

Stark's voice was cutting, cold and mocking, and his eyes had hardened when Leah threw the file folder down on the table. He turned his screen around, and detailed weapons designs were clearly visible, down to the very last screw.

"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit," the Captain bit out, and Leah detected a note of resignation in his words. She couldn't react-she was focusing on _not_ forcing the Director into sudden and irreversible cardiac arrest, since she had a feeling SHIELD wouldn't take that very well.

The lab door opened again, and Leah shifted her gaze to Romanov and Thor, who had just entered. Thor looked around in confusion at the tension that hung in the air like smog, but Romanov's gaze was fixed on Doctor Banner the second she walked through the door. Leah knew that look-that was the focus of someone who needed something, and if SHIELD wanted anything from Banner, it couldn't be good. So, subtly, she shifted until she was standing next to Banner, and found herself abruptly on the 'side' that included Rogers, Stark, and Banner, ranged against Romanov and Fury, while Thor floated somewhere in the middle. Sides were very clearly being defined, and some part of her was worried by that.

Banner turned to Romanov. "Did you know about this?" he asked her accusingly. She tensed, and her gaze became more pointed.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" she asked carefully, and physically backed off when his dark eyebrows clashed.

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed," he said, just shades away from snapping it.

"Loki's manipulating you," the redhaired agent went on, slowly inching towards Banner. Leah crossed her arms and took a decidedly defensive stance, glaring at her, and to her vindictively pleased surprise, Romanov backed up a bit again.

"And you've been doing what, exactly?" the doctor retorted, but for all his irritation, Leah heard the resignation under it.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you," Romanov said.

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction," Banner said, pointing a finger at Fury. The tall man sighed heavily, one eye glaring at all of them, except for Leah-he just flinched and skipped over her red-hot glare, and she got a jolt of distinctly vicious pleasure.

"Because of him," Fury said suddenly, pointing a finger. Everyone's gazes were drawn to Thor, who unfolded his arms in surprise, face confused.

"Me?"

"Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that levelled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously out-gunned," Fury admitted with a self-deprecating snort.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet!" Thor protested, apparently hurt that Fury would assume Asgard was hostile.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, can't be controlled." Fury said that last, turning slowly to look at Leah, and she growled at him. Hot damn, she had made him flinch twice today, she was on a _roll_.

"Cause you controlled the cube _so_ well," Leah asked sardonically.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war," Thor insisted, voice as serious as it had ever been.

"A higher form?" Steve asked, voice rising.

"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something!"

"A nuclear deterrent, cause that always calms everything right down," Stark said, angry and cold at the same time. Leah was feeling much the same, frigid and furious.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury asked, and Leah was sure that if it was anyone else, they would have flinched. As it was, Tony's eyes tightened slightly around the edges.

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-" Steve began, and both Tony and Leah turned to him in surprise.

"Wait, wait, hold on! How is this now about me?" _Add that to the list of things I never thought I'd hear Tony Stark say._

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve asked, and all Leah could think was that he was uncharacteristically angry. Everyone in this room was, including herself. Whereas before they'd been tolerant, that was gone, emotions running high.

That was just it, though. Everyone's anger seemed to be amplified, even Rogers, who seemed to be mild-mannered, not to mention intentionally polite. Banner, even, was getting angry, and he had the most reason to stay calm. Leah looked around, suddenly suspicious-this was exactly what Loki wanted. A 'team' divided, unwilling to work with each other, unable to even stay in the same room without shouting. But what in this room could Loki influence? Not his magic, surely, there had to be something else-

-the staff. Her blue-green eyes fixed on it, and saw that yes, the blue light at the top was throwing off equally eerie sparks. She moved towards it.

Suddenly everyone was arguing, Thor and Fury, Tony and Rogers, Romanov edging towards Banner, but she couldn't really understand the words. Her gaze was fixed on the blue light at the top of the golden spear, which arced, just like lightning.

"Why shouldn't they guy let off a little steam?" Stark asked with false joking in his voice, clapping a hand to Steve's shoulder when Leah finally drew her attention away from the staff.

"You know damn well why! Back off!" the Captain snapped, shoving off Tony's hand. Tony looked at him coldly.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," he said dangerously.

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?" Steve asked mockingly, looming over the shorter man, but Tony didn't back down. But that hidden flinch was there, tight eyes and all, and Leah wondered at that.

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Stark rattled off immediately, that lightning fast wit of his back in play.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you," Rogers went on ruthlessly. "I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

Leah watched Tony's eyes get tighter and tighter, even risk a glance to the slight left of the Captain, and wondered absently if Steve knew how much those words hurt him. Her fingers brushed metal.

"I think I would just cut the wire," the billionaire said sarcastically.

"Always a way out," Rogers said, almost triumphantly, like he had won, sitting back on his heels. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero, like you?" Tony replied immediately, ever word designed to cut. "You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

God, they were really going at each other. This was two men, wounding as deep as they could, and, if Leah was reading the signs right, unintentionally finding their opponent's weakest points.

The arguing was still loud around her, but she found herself focusing on Tony and the Captain. There was something off here, definitely.

And then she realized how to make sure.

She opened her senses, and felt every volt of energy in the room. Every wire running through the walls, every insignificant circuit lit up, and she didn't have to look far to see what was searching. Energy was bleeding into the air like gas, wrapping around the occupants in the room, and Leah shook her head. The almost-images disappeared, but she could still feel the energy flowing out from the staff.

The room went quiet, suddenly, but it wasn't because of her. Fury raised his hands, looking at Banner with trepidation.

"Agent Romanov, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-"

"Where? You're renting my room," the doctor replied sarcastically, and Leah didn't think he noticed his hand reaching back to take hold of the staff. Her fingers closed around his before they touched it, and he jerked his gaze to her in surprise. She shook her head minutely, and he turned back.

Fury was trying to play peacekeeper. It wasn't a good look on him. "The cell was just in case-"

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know, I've tried!"

Stillness. Instant stillness. Leah had privately had some suspicions, but the way Tony was looking at Banner with something approaching heartbreak really killed her.

"I got low," Banner said, almost rushed, like he was trying to get the words out before he stopped himself. "I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out."

God, she knew how that felt. Trying to just have it _stop_ and finding yourself unable, just another thing to fault yourself for.

"So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanov? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

A second of pause, and then there was a loud beep from a computer, and abruptly everyone just...deflated. Leah slowly, ever so slowly unclenched her hands from around the staff, feeling a tiny sense of loss as she did. Except...

Banner seemed to shrug off his irritation. "Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all." He strode off across the lab to attend to the tracking program.

"Have you located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.

"I can get there faster," Stark said, already moving towards the door.

"Look, all of us-"

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," Thor was arguing.

Steve stopped Stark from leaving, and they were arguing again. Leah's eyes widened at the same time Banner's did. He looked up, taking off his glasses, and their gazes met for a second. His were shocked. Hers were too. He nodded vigorously, and Leah didn't need more confirmation.

_Tick._

Cause she had just felt the large energy signature in the shape of a plane, hovering suspiciously near one of the helicarrier engines.

_Tick_.

She started at a run towards Stark and Rogers, pulling on her gloves with a clack, and they turned to frown at her.

_Tick_.

"We've got-"

**_BOOM._**

* * *

**First off;**

**COMIC CON. YOU GUYS. _COMIC._ _CON._ DID ANYBODY ELSE SQUEAK FOR ABOUT THREE HOURS? No? Well, I did. I kind of flipped out. And promptly had an RDJ movie marathon. Excited about Winter Soldier and Thor 2 as well, of course, but Iron Man 3 kind of takes the cake for me. I didn't actually go so I haven't seen the footage, but damn I am _*~*excited.*~*_ Also RDJ is just...the best.**

**Second;**

**Sorry D: I really didn't mean to update so late, but this chapter kind of got away from me, so it's...kind of long? Longest yet, I think, even though that doesn't entirely make up for it. If there's any format errors in this, sorry, I edited on about four hours of sleep so I could get this up tonight :P Wehh I'm so sorry D:**

**Third; thank you to everyone who is reviewing, if I haven't gotten back to you it's because I've been spending every possible moment on the computer typing (not that there are very many moments...) this chapter. I'll try and get back to the new reviewers, thank you all very much! Keep em coming!**

**Reviews make the world go round; and the typing go faster!**

**-Hopp**


	8. Chapter 8

**The _Inception _soundtrack is a great motivator. Hence the action-y chapter.**

* * *

The room exploded outwards, everyone thrown in different directions from the blast. Leah ended up on the ground by the door, landing heavily on her back, sliding about a foot before coming to a stop beside Rogers and Stark. There was now a significantly large hole in the corner of the room where Banner had been standing. Thor and Fury were on the opposite side and already pulling themselves up, but Bruce and Agent Romanov were nowhere to be seen.

_Fuck._

"Leah?" came Tony's voice from next to her, followed by a cough from the smoke filtering through the air.

"I'm fine," she gritted out, and Steve was already helping Stark up and out the door, talking about getting the Iron Man suit. Leah was up and running behind them, flexing her fingers, making sure they were as mobile as they had ever been. Her back hurt a bit, and it would probably bruise, but not much else. It didn't matter—something had gone wrong, and she intended to fix it.

"There's a jet hanging around the left engines, don't think it's one of ours," she barked out as the three ran down the halls. The smoke was clearing as they got farther and farther away from the lab, but the amount of agents running around didn't decrease. Alarms were blaring everywhere. Leah's ear crackled, and Agent Hill's frantic but collected voice came over the comm.

_-Engine Three is compromised! I repeat, Engine Three is down!-_

They slammed to a halt, and Tony grabbed Leah by the arm. Her eyes snapped to his, and saw her own grim focus reflected back.

"Will you do this?" he asked. Not _do this_, _**will** you. _He was _asking _her. And not _can you, _either. He had...faith in her. Fortunately, her decision was already made. She may not agree with SHIELD, but she wasn't going to let hundreds, maybe thousands (depending on where they dropped) of people die because she wouldn't offer her assistance.

She nodded sharply, and Tony squeezed her arm briefly before turning to the Captain. "Find engine three," he snapped out. "I'll meet you there."

Steve barked an affirmative, then took off down a different hallway. Leah stared at Stark for another second, then ran after the Captain.

The helicarrier was in chaos. The comm unit in her ear barraged her with a near constant stream of noise, orders from Fury, Romanov trying to persuade someone, followed by an unsettling roaring that Leah heard not just over the comm, but through her feet. Steve and her shared a glance, and then they made a turn.

The rest of the hallway was just...gone. Leah froze for a second, wind whipping her hair around her head and into her face, the sudden shock of clouds and air beyond a jagged tear of metal unnerving, to say the least. But she could see the smoke coming from the huge rotor, and knew there was going to be much, _much _more damage if they didn't fix this. So she charged on ahead, Rogers barely a step behind her.

"Stark, we're here!" he shouted into the comm over the wind. There was a high whining noise—the same thing she had heard in Stuttgart—and Iron Man appeared from below the ship. He was a flash of red and gold, hovering for a second in front of them before he peeled off towards the engine. He paused at a section of wreckage that was barely holding together, and put his gauntlets on the metal.

-_Good. Let's see what we got.-_

There was a blast, and the metal bars curled inwards, allowing Stark access to the innards of the engine. He disappeared from view, and Leah's eyes swept over the remains of catwalks and machinery around them. She spotted an access panel—probably for the engine—and was about to point it out to Rogers when Stark's voice came over the comm again.

-_I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors and dislodge the debris. I need you two to get to that control panel and tell me which relays are in the overload position.-_

"Aye aye," Leah said sarcastically. Problem was, the panel was across a not-too-large gap and up about fifteen feet.

Leah was stronger than average. She guessed it came with rest of her powers. But her strength wasn't enough to get her up there. The Captain, sure, he was the golden boy of the super soldier serum, but she wasn't _quite _as strong as him. She was, however, agile, and she mentally mapped out her route up.

Rogers and Leah shared a glance. She waved a hand at him. "Go!" He looked at her suspiciously for a second, then sighed, and jumped.

God, he really was strong. The fifteen foot jump was nothing, the Captain swinging off a bar and landing easily on his feet. Leah had to resort to less quick measures.

She made a running jump, ignoring Steve's strangled noise of horror, and just as she started to fall, she lashed her hand out. There was a crack, and a still-sparking cable disconnected from the wall, swinging down into her waiting hand. She caught it easily, swinging with it and up. At the peak of the swing, her gloved hand clamped around a piece of metal. She swung the reverse way, then, and let go at the highest point, finally finding her hands on the edge of the ruined catwalk where the vaguely stunned Captain was standing. Leah pulled herself up easily, landing in a crouch and straightening. She gave Rogers an odd look and was rewarded with a quick clearing of his throat. She would have laughed if time wasn't of the essence.

_-Pretty, kid, now can you get a move on?- _came Stark's amused voice, and Leah made a rude hand gesture.

They moved off towards the panel, Steve letting her take over the electrical things. She laid her hands on the ruined keypad next to it. There was, predictably, layers of security to burn her way through before she nodded at him and he pulled out a panel. It was covered in wires and relays, most of them red and orange. Leah could feel the ones that were going where they were supposed to and was relieved to note it was almost all of them, but little more than that.

_-What's it look like in there?-_

"It appears to run on some form of electricity," Rogers said exasperatedly.

_-Well, you're not wrong,- _Stark replied, sounding less irritated and more exasperated. -_C'mon, kid, you know more about this than Capsicle—what've we got?-_

Leah gently bumped the Captain out of the way, who moved back gratefully, and traced her ungloved fingertip over a relay. "They're definitely intact, what exactly are you planning to do?"

_-Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push.-_

"Hell no," Leah snapped. "That rotor gets up to speed, you become finely diced Tony chunks."

_-Nice to know you care, kid,- _Stark responded dryly. -_That's why you're staying in the control unit so you can reverse polarity long enough to disengage—-_

"Speak English!" the Captain said, annoyed, even as Leah was nodding her head. The long-suffering sigh over the comms was clearly audible.

_-See that red lever?- _came the strained question. -_It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it and wait for my word.-_

"Fine," Leah said. "But if you call me kid again, you're going to _wish _you were finely diced." Tony only snorted in response.

Barely thirty seconds passed before she tensed. What was _with _these people, wearing electrical things everywhere, yet trying to be sneaky? And why would SHIELD agents need to be sneaky? Or maybe...maybe they weren't really SHIELD anymore.

"Cap," she said warningly. "We've got incoming, and I don't think they're friendly."

Her suspicions were confirmed when a man all in black and wielding a rather large gun burst through the door, and instantly started raining down bullets on them. Leah suddenly found the Captain's arm across her chest, and her back was, once again, slammed into a wall facing the clear air past the helicarrier. Bullets passed harmlessly about a foot to her side, and she dropped out from under the arm.

"I can take care of myself," she said shortly. He stared at her for a second, before she crouched low, slid herself out from behind the wall, conveniently under the spray of bullets, and threw her arm out.

Lightning flashed through the space, bouncing off the metal wall opposite and down to the level where the gunmen were. It ricocheted off every metal surface, multiplying every time, and Leah was mildly pleased that the amplifiers in her palms were working. There were shouts and shrieks, and Leah almost snorted at the high-pitched squeals, but the second the bullets cut out, she dropped to the ground, sliding along the metal and dropping about five feet to the level below.

Her left foot barely missed the edge, but it did come down on metal, and Leah launched herself at the nearest black-clad man, grabbing his gun at either end where it was held across his chest. She swung him around once, not giving him a chance to pull away before she yanked the weapon out of his hands and sent him flying into one of his comrades. Those two crashed into a pile, heads slamming against the ground and knocking them out cold. The Captain was yelling at her from up top, but she merely spun around and swept another man's legs out from under him, landing heavily. The bullets started up again. But she felt them coming.

When a trigger was pulled, it took energy to release a bullet. Sure, it wasn't exactly electricity, but energy was her specialty, and Leah had found over the years that she could still _feel _kinetic energy—she just couldn't manipulate it. And she had tried, because telekinesis would be _so _useful. But, anyway, when a bullet was fired, she felt the energy running through it, and had taught herself to map out the straight line it would take. She wasn't a genius in the way Stark or Doctor Banner were geniuses, but she had figured out over the years that her brain moved faster than most peoples' in specific ways. She could calculate about three times faster than the average human being, and that in particular helped with predicting the paths of bullets. So it was really no surprise when her mind started drawing lines from rifle muzzles to various points on her body.

Speed went with Leah's strength, too, another bullet point in the long list of things that she filed under the umbrella topic of 'abilities.' Which meant that jumping up about two feet in the air, grabbing a metal bar hanging out of the ceiling and sparking slightly, and lifting her feet high above the heads of the attackers, and avoiding the hail of bullets that riddled the metal she had occupied not a second before.

Yeah. This was normal.

She heard a thunk, and half the bullets redirected at the Captain, who had finally dropped down to join her. Leah dropped to her feet, coming from underneath the nearest gunman with a sharp punch to his groin. Her knuckles cracked against a guard, but nonetheless, he dropped to the ground as well, groaning.

_Number one surefire way to take down a man: destroy the family jewels._

Cap had picked up one of the downed attacker's weapons, and was dealing with the three men who had engaged him. She was still going, punching and kicking at anyone who came close, picking up a few grazes from bullets she didn't have the time to dodge.

_-Engine One is down!-_

Leah felt her heart drop as the frantic shout crackled in her ear, and Fury's voice came on with even more bad news.

_-Agent Barton is headed for detention level—does anybody copy?-_

Her and Steve shared a horrified look before they returned with renewed vigor to their fights. However, the ship started to tilt, listing severely to the left, as both engines on that side went dead. The floor under Leah's feet started to tilt, and the open air loomed on her right. Her boots scrabbled for purchase and she leapt for a handhold, the Captain doing the same, grabbing onto a metal pipe. Leah took the opportunity to trip up a man who went stumbling past her, and didn't pay him another second's thought as he fell on his face, slid, and went tumbling out into open air, screaming as he fell. The Captain stared at her, and she opened her mouth to snarl. They didn't have time for sentiment.

There was a deep groan, and a whirring noise, building in speed. The ship leveled again as Stark finally got Engine Three back online. However, the gunmen resumed their attack, and Leah was fending off a swing of a rifle when she saw Cap go rolling towards the edge.

"Rogers!" Leah screamed.

_Fuck. **Fuck. **He is **not **dying on me. Not here._

Her hand latched around her attacker's throat, and within seconds he was twitching on the ground, yellow sparks leaping over him. Her other hand lashed out as Steve rolled by, and a cable disconnected, sparking. His hand gripped it as he slid over the edge, and suddenly he was hanging thirty thousand feet in the air, connected to the ship by only a cable.

_-Guys! Need a lever!-_

"We're a little busy!" Leah snarled, her metal fist crunching a nose and hopefully sending shards into a brain. She gripped under one man's shoulders, and launched him to her right.

Make that two men sent to a screaming death.

-_Lever! NOW!-_

Stark was frantic—she could hear the banging from the engine from here. God_dammit_. She glanced at Rogers, and saw him pulling himself up. She inhaled, and leaped.

Her hand just barely caught the edge of the catwalk, and she managed to pull herself up. She raced to the red lever, and yanked.

There was a clang, a second of heart-stopping silence, and then the whine of repulsors. Iron Man entered with a bang, palm repulsors firing into the remaining men, killing them instantly or at least giving them bad concussions as they fell to the ground. He landed on one knee, fist down, and stood quickly.

"Fuck, kid, you okay?" Tony asked, slightly synthesized voice sounding strained. She nodded in confusion, and then looked down. Her jacket was little more than shreds, her shirt and jeans stained with bloody lines in places—evidence of the grazes. She waved a hand, about to say it was nothing, when the comm came to life with a panicked yell.

_-Loki is on deck! I repeat, Loki is on deck and heading for quinjet number—-_

The words cut off with a gargle, and Leah whipped around. Her eyes met Iron Man's glowing blue ones, and some understanding seemed to pass to Tony.

"Don't go it alone, kid—"

"Get me up there," she snarled, and when he shook his head, she growled.

"Have it your way," she said blandly, and jumped backwards off the catwalk.

Leah fell into the open air, dropping maybe twenty feet, suddenly thinking that maybe she had misjudged Tony's response time, and _oh, god, _she had just thrown herself off the helicarrier because of a man she _thought _would come after her, she hadn't known him even a week, oh god she was going to die. That was before a red and gold shape dropped next to her and grabbed her around the waist. The whine of the repulsors kicked in, and they were rising suddenly.

"Don't you _ever _fucking do that again, do you understand me?" Tony growled in her ear, and she was surprised at the heat in his words. "_Ever." _Cheeks slightly red, she grinned at him wildly. She jabbed a finger up, and the impassive metal mask stared at her for a second before she heard his sigh. He jetted upwards, passed the white face of the Captain, and he set her down roughly on the edge of the helicarrier top deck.

"What the fuck do you expect to do?" Stark demanded. Leah raised her fingers and wiggled them.

"His staff, powered by the Tesseract, right? That's pure energy. I'm fairly certain I can absorb it, unlike most people," she rattled off, already stepping backwards.

"Fairly certain?" he asked, voice cracking. She gave him a feral grin and took off running.

She could see Loki. He was striding across the deck, flanked by no one, staff already in hand. She grimaced—she had hoped he wouldn't be able to get it, but apparently he had managed to get into the lab. She pushed herself faster.

At the sound of her running feet, he turned his head, and his eyes widened slightly in surprise. His mouth twisted, and his staff cut the air in front of him. Leah leapt to the side to dodge a bolt of blue energy, and she growled. Her arm shot out in front of her. A bolt of lightning hit Loki square on the chest, and he stumbled back in surprise. His head snapped up, and she could feel the ice of his glare from here. Loki's lips curled in a cruel smile, and he disappeared.

He reappeared, in all his armored glory, thirty feet away, stepping up the ramp to a ready and waiting quinjet. Leah's eyes widened, and her fingers splayed out towards the jet.

Not one, not two, but four bolts of lightning shot from each finger, curling around the jet. She sustained them for as long as she could, but her energy was definitely starting to dip. She was just trying to fry something, _anything _that would slow down the jet, or even take it out of the sky. She could swear Loki smirked at her as the bay door closed and the jet pulled away.

_-Doctor Banner and Thor have dropped off the grid. We have no idea where they've gone.- _Over the comms, Fury sounded resigned, and, inexplicably, sad. _-Agent Coulson...-_ There was a breath. _-Agent Coulson has been declared killed in action.-_

_-Med team is on it's—-_

_-They're already here...they called it.-_

Leah stumbled back a step.

_Fuck._

They had no plan, no Tesseract, no staff, and no Loki. The helicarrier was damaged, and Leah doubted it would be up to any battles for a while. Banner and Thor were missing, which meant they were down one genius and the god of thunder, and possibly the only person who could claim an emotional connection with Loki. None of them could trust Fury right now, and, worst—Agent Coulson was dead.

Coulson. The man who had cared enough to actually _explain _things to her, get her to feel like part of the team, to get her fucking _socks _in her favorite color because she mentioned them in passing. She couldn't claim to know him, but...

There was a clank behind her, and she didn't even turn or acknowledge the red metal hand that dropped on her shoulder. After a second, though, she turned to Tony, helmet under his arm. He didn't say anything, just removed his hand from her shoulder and started walking towards the deck exits. Leah stared over the edge of the helicarrier for a second, blue skies and innocently white clouds, and followed him, heart about twenty times heavier.

* * *

The team—or what was left of it—was gathered at the conference table, silence pressing down on them like a physical presence. No one appeared too beat up—Leah _looked _the worst, small cuts all over the sides of her legs and torso, but they'd heal to nothing within hours. Her jacket was ruined, though—it'd take hours to mend.

Hours they didn't have.

Fury was standing facing the windows, arms folded. Steve and Romanov were at the table, Rogers slumped back in his chair with a tired look on his face. Leah leaned her hands on the table, staring resolutely at the faint SHIELD logo on the glass, the fingers of one hand tapping. Tony stood leaning against the wall, facing slightly away from the group, although he looked back once or twice to pin a glare at the scratch along Leah's forehead.

Fury walked over to the group, face more resigned than she had ever seen it.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket." There was a light thwack, and Leah looked over, and quickly looked away—blood stained trading cards, a few drops splattered on the pristine glass table. Rogers inhaled quickly. "Guess he never did get you to sign them," Fury said quietly, and sighed.

"We're dead in the air up here," Fury said. He sounded...tired. Tired and old."Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor—I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye..." He turned slightly, a self-deprecating snort escaping his lips. "Maybe I had that coming."

He sighed deeply again, and the Director squared his shoulders. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract," he admitted. "I never put all my chips on that number though—because I was playing something even riskier.

"There was an idea—Stark knows this—" Tony tensed, "...called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them —to fight the battles we never could."

Fury turned to face them, grim focus in every line of his face. "Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

There was a pause where no one seemed to know what to say. Leah's fingers tightened on the edge of the table, minute cracks extending from her fingers.

Tony walked away. He just left, striding out of the room, heading through a different door than the one that led to the lab.

Fury watched him go and sighed heavily. "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

There was another beat of intensely heavy silence, and then Leah left as well.

She honestly didn't know what to do. For once in her life, she had no plan. Loki was still out there somewhere, probably still on the track to letting his alien army through and sweeping over the world, and it appeared that this half-broken team was the only thing stopping the god. But they weren't a team—they couldn't even be in the same room with each other without shouting. Steve and Tony were at each others throats half the time, and the other half they were in combat. They were missing half the team—Romanov had gone off to talk to Agent Barton, who was apparently back on their side, but Leah had no idea what the status there was—with no idea where to go next.

And if they didn't figure it out soon, Loki was going to take over the world. So no pressure.

Did she even belong here?

The question brought her up short. She didn't usually question herself—she was confident, she knew that much. But for once in her life, she felt ineffectual—useless, unable to do anything but watch. She halted in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the agents scurrying around her, and her hands clenched into fists.

Fuck that. She _could _make a difference—she just had to try.

Leah didn't even realize where she was going when she found herself in the room that used to hold Loki. The entire cell was gone, a vast empty space in the middle of the room. The hatch was closed, but Leah dazedly assumed that it must have opened sometime during the battle. They hadn't been able to access the security footage yet, but that must have been how Thor went missing—it didn't seem like the Hulk would enter a cell so easily.

Tony was already there. Leaning on the railing over the open space, staring down at the hatch without really seeing it. Leah stopped in the doorway, then took a deep breath and walked over to stand next to him.

"Hey, kid," he said softly.

"Hey," she replied, equally quietly. They didn't say anything after that, and Leah wondered what the genius was thinking. She turned, turning her back on the empty room and facing the wall instead. Her breath caught for a second when she saw the red—the rusty red smear, about as wide as a man, dragging down the wall before fading out. She bit her lip looking at it—_blood on the walls, splattered everywhere, on her hands, her face—_but didn't comment. Tony didn't turn.

"Was he married?"

Leah looked over. Steve was standing in the doorway, divested of his uniform and just wearing a blue shirt, pants, and the red boots. He was leaning one shoulder against the doorway, feet crossed, and he was looking at Tony with the oddest mix of irritation and concern.

"No," the billionaire replied absently, still staring into space. "There was a...cellist. I think."

"I'm sorry," Steve said quietly. "He seemed like a good man."

Tony opened his mouth, then shut it. "He was an idiot," he said eventually, uncaring tone sounding slightly forced.

"Why? For believing?" Steve asked, confused with just a shade of anger.

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job."

"He was out of his league," Stark snapped, finally turning. "He should have waited, he should have..." He trailed off, eyes slightly unfocused, but sliding back to Steve when they crossed Leah's concerned expression.

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony," Rogers said gently, and Leah noted absently it was the first time he had called Tony by his first name. The dark-haired man inhaled, finally stepping down from the catwalk and striding past the Captain.

"Right, how did that work for him?" he muttered.

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Steve asked, turning to watch him.

"We are _not _soldiers," Stark growled, whipping around suddenly, anger in every line of his body and shining in his eyes. Steve actually took a step back, surprised by the sudden change in tone. "I'm not marching to Fury's fife."

"Neither am I," Steve replied evenly, and Leah snorted. He glared at her before turning back to Tony. "He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does, but right now we gotta put that behind us and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list—"

"But it's personal now," Leah interjected. They were going about it the wrong way. Loki wasn't human, he wasn't even entirely sane, the things he wanted might be clear, but the way he went after them wouldn't always make sense. He was a god, yes, but even gods could be broken. And Leah suspected Loki was very broken on the inside. In Stuttgart, what had he done? Invaded a gala, taken what he wanted, and then forced himself on the masses, forced them to submit. If he was only after the Tesseract, he would have taken the eye and left before SHIELD had a chance to show up and subdue him. And why bother taking Agent Barton in the first place, back when this had all started, instead of just killing him if he didn't want to drive home the message 'I am in control' to SHIELD?

Both Steve and Tony turned to her. While Tony's eyes took on a speculative gleam, Steve merely seemed irritated.

"That's not the point," he said, as if he was talking to a three-year-old.

"That _is _the point," Tony agreed, and Leah could almost see the gears working away in his head. "That's Loki's entire point. He hit us here, right at home, why?"

"To tear us apart," Steve argued.

"Ah, but he didn't kill us," Leah pointed out, raising a finger. "He didn't do that, because he has to take us out to win, but he doesn't want to do it here. He wants to beat us, yeah, but he wants to have the whole world see him do it."

"Right," Rogers said slowly. "I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"That? That was just previews," Leah said scornfully. "This is opening night. Loki's a diva if I ever saw one. He wants flowers, camera crews—"

"Parades," Stark interjected. "Monuments built to the sky with his name plastered—"

He stopped, and he turned to Leah, eyes wide. She pointed an accusing finger at him, mouth opening and closing, and he just glared impotently. Steve looked between them, entirely oblivious.

"Son of a bitch," Tony said viciously, and abruptly exited the room.

Leah looked at the Captain, shrugged, then sighed. Looked like she was going to New York—to Stark Tower.

* * *

**So! Sorry the chapter is so short for how long it took to put up. Personal stuff happened. But, we're getting close to the climax of our story! The next chapter will probably be pretty short, an in-between thing before the *~*big battle.*~* Also, since I hate putting updates as 'chapters' in a story, I'm going to start updating my profile with notes about _Volt. _Predictions about when I'll update, maybe some sneak-peeks, etc. So if you guys want to know when the next chapter is coming, check my profile! And if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM.**

**And...wow. 27 favorites, _57 _follows. Now if only every person following the story would leave a review...even if it's just a 'good chapter' or 'thanks for the update,' they don't have to be paragraph-length, every review counts! I try to reply to every review.**

**Reviews are like boxes of chocolates for authors**—**so remember to review! Thanks!**

**-Hoppi**


	9. Chapter 9

**And we're back! I think this is the fastest update yet...keep the reviews coming! Now, this is the hour (approximately) that I assume takes place between the end of the last chapter and when the team heads for New York, plus the journey there. This chapter is chock full of description and introspection, since the last chapter was so full of action. Just a little in-betweener before the big battle next chapter.**

* * *

"Hey, kid."

Leah looked up. Since the lab had been destroyed, she had had nowhere to go. There had been no discussion after the conversation in the cell room, since no one wanted SHIELD to try and stop them from heading to New York.

They had figured out that Loki was going to use Stark Tower to set off his alien invasion, as a kind of jeer at Tony himself. Although they hadn't said a word, the remainder of the team had silently agreed—they were heading to New York, and they were going to kick Loki's ass.

Well, maybe that wasn't what the rest of them had been thinking, but Leah certainly was enjoying her vision of booting Leah's skinny, godly butt off the edge of a skyscraper.

But, in the meantime, Steve had gone off to make sure that everything was in order, Natasha had left to take care of Agent Clint Barton—a master marksman who would apparently be joining them after being saved from Loki's mind-control—and Tony had said something about repairs to his suit. So Leah had been left alone, again, and had found herself standing in front of the door to her SHIELD-designated room. There were many, many things she hated about this room—she wasn't afraid of it, shut up—but there really wasn't anywhere else to go. So she was now sitting on the bed, legs folded under her, playing with the metal plates on one of her gloves _(definitely _not looking at the walls)_,_ at least until she heard those words. There was only one person who called her 'kid.'

Tony was standing in the doorway, looking tired, but also...sheepish? He was holding something in his hands—several somethings, actually—that looked like clothes. Why would Tony get her clothes?

"Hi," she said suspiciously, and was pleased her voice stayed even. Tony was looking at her room with extreme distaste, wrinkling his nose at the blank walls.

"This is where they put you? _Really?_" he asked in disbelief. Leah tensed.

"Why would you ask that?" she said quickly, before she realized it was a harmless question. She was reading too far into things. It was this damn _room. _Tony, however, noticed—of course he did—and looked at her oddly before shrugging.

"No reason. Were you really planning on going to battle in just that?" he asked immediately, changing the topic. Leah was grateful for that.

"Well—no?" she said, but she hadn't really thought about it—at all. Her leather jacket had been in essence shredded in the helicarrier battle, so really all she had were her jeans, her boots, her gloves, and the pale blue tank top she had been wearing when she arrived. She knew that wouldn't be enough for a real fight—she couldn't dodge bullets forever—but she refused to wear the navy suits that had SHIELD logos _everywhere._

"Oh my God, you were," Tony said disparagingly. She glared at him. He shrugged, and basically threw what he was carrying at her. He did that a lot. Leah caught the items in midair—something long and black, something smaller and yellow, and a whole bunch of random grey things. Tony stood awkwardly in the doorway, actually shifting on his feet, and oh God, this had to be horrible for _Tony _to be embarrassed.

"Uh—there's no logos anywhere on it," he said awkwardly, and Leah raised an eyebrow. "The yellow thing—it's a vest, it has some wiring in it, if your heart ever goes...'off-beat', it should jolt it back to normal, should take care of the heart attacks." Leah's eyes widened, and she reached for the yellow fabric.

"The rods, those are mine too," Tony rambled on, shoving his hands in his pocket. "Superconductors. Sharp enough to pierce, the handle shouldn't shift in your grip, they're balanced for throwing too, you like knives, right?" He didn't give her a chance to answer, barreling on, edging out the door. "Not rubber, though, so you can light 'em up. The other stuff is courtesy of the SHIELD armory, I wouldn't have given you a pistol, but Fury seemed to think my 'toy sticks' wouldn't be enough. The batteries...the batteries are all me, sorry, bad joke, I'll just...go. Away. Now."

And with that, the billionaire was gone, not even bothering to shut the door behind him as he strode off down the hall, leaving a very confused Leah.

_Uh...what?_

She shook herself slightly, and reached over to the pile. She snagged the yellow thing first, and held it up.

It was most definitely a vest. Sleeveless and made from thick yellow fabric, with square cutouts on the side from the middle of her ribcage down to her hips. It zipped up the front, and it looked like it could go all the way up to her chin. There was something electronic under the surface, definitely, right over where her heart would be when she put it on. She traced the wiring under the surface, feeling her way through it—it was simple, but seemed effective. The black thing was actually a charcoal grey standard SHIELD jumpsuit, but there wasn't a logo to be found, no identifying marks at all, just simple leather with reinforced knees and elbows. It was definitely kevlar, though, which _wasn't _standard-issue—it would protect her well from bullets and other projectiles. The other items were various lighter-grey additions; a belt with various pouches and a pistol-shaped holster, an upper-arm band that had round cartridges, and two holsters that strapped around her thighs, perfectly fitted to the rods that had fallen to the side. The rods themselves were odd enough—shiny grey metal about a foot long with grips on one end, tapering to an extremely sharp point. The grips were perfectly sized to her hands. For a second, Leah wondered what Tony had meant by 'batteries,' before she opened the cylindrical cartridges on the arm band and found a series of d-cell batteries inside.

She gave a short, helpless laugh, frankly overwhelmed. Why would he do this for her? She could have easily just gone into battle in a SHIELD jumpsuit, since she knew she would need some armor, and no one would have known how much it bothered her. But Tony had actually made sure that what he gave her wouldn't make it look like she was taking orders from anyone, and not only that, had _created _something that would make sure she wouldn't hurt herself. He had made her _weapons, _weapons designed specifically for her.

Why?

Her first thought was so that she would owe him, but she instantly tossed that idea aside. She really had to stop thinking like that. But...did Tony really like her, trust her that much?

Did anyone?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a head poking its way through her door. Leah looked up, startled, and eventually identified Steve—just with his cowl up, blue covering half his face. What she could see of him, though, was set in determined lines.

"You got armor?" he asked shortly.

"I do now," she replied dryly, waving a vague hand towards the pile. He nodded sharply.

"Then suit up. We're wheels up in ten, Hangar Two." With that, the Captain withdrew, closing the door behind him.

Barely five minutes later, Leah had managed to get herself into the suit and the vest—it was intensely creepy that Stark had managed to fit the skin-tight suit to her exactly—and was just clipping the belt. Oddly enough, she didn't feel silly—she felt, if possible, even more determined, and like she was actually a part of something bigger. She slid the rods into the holsters at the sides of her legs, folded her clothes neatly on the bed, and swallowed, hand hovering over the handle. Leah took a breath and wrenched it open, striding down the hallway before she could think twice.

It didn't take long to find Hangar Two—even on the helicarrier, there was only so much space for massive rooms full of aircraft. She met up with the Captain and the two agents, and without a word, they headed for a quinjet.

It didn't take much to get the pilot running for the hills—the sudden appearance of four suited-up, determined superheroes tended to do that. Agent Romanov handed them each earpieces as Barton started take-off procedures, and Leah clicked hers in.

"Iron Man, do you copy?" Rogers said into the piece immediately. Of course—the soldier checking his team.

_-Loud and clear, Captain.- _came Tony's voice, clear over the comms. _-Leah, you there?-_

"Yup," Leah said into the unit.

_-How are the sticks?-_

Leah pulled one of the spears out, tapping a finger on the point and smiling in vicious anticipation when it gave her the equivalent of a paper cut, even from the light tap. Her grip tightened by a fraction, and instantly, yellow lightning rolled down the length of it, making Rogers jump slightly. Leah raised an eyebrow—she had used the smallest possible spark. The rods really did superconduct.

"Absolutely wonderful," she said, but there wasn't any sarcasm in her tone—she really meant it. There was a pause, and she could just see Tony shifting awkwardly.

_-Peachy. If this all goes south, I'm not the one who gave you sharp objects, got it?-_

"I hate you, Stark," Leah said cheerfully.

_-Love you too. Anybody got an update on Thor or Banner?-_

"Negative," Steve said, running his hand over the edge of his shield. "We're assuming Thor is going to try and come in, but it's doubtful Banner will show."

_-Is that so,- _Tony responded, and they were surprised by the tight, strained tone. Not for Bruce, surely, but why would it be so wrong to assume the volatile doctor had run for it? Leah privately thought better of the man, but SHIELD was SHIELD. Luckily, Steve didn't comment, his eyebrows just furrowed slightly and he stared at his hands as the comms went silent.

The plane hummed to life around them, and Leah pulled her legs up underneath her, sitting Indian-style with her head leaned back against the wall. She blinked, and suddenly Agent Romanov appeared on her right. Leah tensed momentarily as Romanov pulled a pistol from...somewhere, but the agent merely handed it to her with a blank look.

"Do you know how to shoot?" the redhead asked impassively. Leah rolled her eyes, but nodded. One perfect red eyebrow raised.

"Are you any good?" she asked, the faintest trace of curiosity in her tone. Leah shrugged.

"I can hit what I aim at," she replied archly. Well, she could—she was a fairly good marksman with a pistol—but she just didn't do it _often, _since she could, you know, throw lightning from her hands. Natasha considered her for another moment, before handing her a handful of ammo that Leah tucked into one of her belt pouches. The pistol went into the third holster hanging at her right hip. She probably wouldn't need it, what with Tony's gifts, but it never hurt to have a backup.

Speaking of which, how exactly had Tony known she liked knives? He was right—she was far better with knives than she was with guns—but she was...worried about how he had found out. Leah was skilled with them, from close-combat to throwing, but it wasn't a skill she advertised, that particular card kept closer to her chest than even her lightning. It was always a good idea to have a last line of defense that no one knew about. If Tony had discovered her penchant for pointy things, maybe she hadn't been as careful as she should have been the last time she gutted someone.

Leah pulled one of the rods out of a holster, flipping it by its point and catching it at the handle. It wouldn't be useful as a knife, exactly—slashing moves wouldn't work unless it was powered up. She had initially worried that she wouldn't be able to power it constantly, but after seeing how little it took to get some voltage running, she knew she'd be able to keep the rods crackling for a long time. But with some adaptations to fighting style, she'd be able to use these _very _well.

The plane was silent, Romanov and Barton installed in the cockpit and Cap not making any move towards conversation. Leah flipped the rods over and over in her hands, point to handle to point, Steve's blue eyes following the movements, as she considered where exactly her life had gone.

She had not had an easy life, that much was certain. Sure, she had had a fairly normal childhood—until the day she turned seven years old, and her life turned to all kinds of hell. Pain, pain, pain, all designed to turn her into a weapon. She didn't dwell on her past, for exactly that reason—because if she remembered how _angry _she had been, she would be a weapon. Then, when she turned fifteen, she had gotten herself out. _That _hadn't been an easy feat, but it got her out. Out and into the world. There was about a year that Leah didn't like to think about either—what she had been when she honestly did not give two shits about human lives, and had taken out her pain on other people. But then she had dedicated herself to destroying the people who had hurt her for eight long years. That had led to hacking files, and that had led her to SHIELD, and _that _had led her...here.

'Here' was willingly jumping on a plane to save a world that hadn't been worth a moldy potato to her in the past. 'Here' was understanding completely that she could very well die today. 'Here' was barging her way onto a team that didn't really need her. 'Here' was dealing with an annoying, egotistical billionaire, a stiff Captain, a pair of assassins, an archaic god, and a man who could destroy them all if he got angry. 'Here' was having people try to manipulate her, turn her into a weapon, to get what they wanted. 'Here' was going up against a fucking _god._

But 'here' was actually pretty damn good.

She was fighting to save the goddamn _world. _That was something not many could say. She was secure, and, for once, she had people that she felt the beginnings of trust for watching her back. 'Here' was snarking at Tony and debating with Bruce and fighting alongside Steve. She wasn't being tracked down by one shady organization or another, and she was confident she could deal with Fury. Loki she had a problem with because of her entire damn childhood—people who took away freedom were a...problem to her—and would fight against no matter what.

It was a far cry from the last two years, being on the run and running after something she might never attain, something that mattered only to her. She didn't have to hide any more, and _God, _that was sweet. Leah mused that if she died this way, she wouldn't really mind. She'd give it her all, because if there was something she could do to help, she had to do it.

That didn't mean she had a death wish. Fuck no, she wanted to see the fruits of her labor.

While she was busy being all deep and introspective, Steve cleared his throat. Leah stilled her hands, fingers grasping the tips of the rods, and he gestured to her, flushed slightly.

"Did Stark get you the armor?" he asked curiously. Leah nodded, sliding the weapons into their holsters and tapping a finger on the vest. She had zipped it up about midway, the black suit's zipper only a few inches above it—she did have to breathe, didn't she? Zipping both up all the way to her chin would just make it unbearably hot.

"Yeah. Made me the weapons, too," she added, running her fingers over the grips. Steve looked impressed for a bare second before Iron Man's slightly synthesized voice came over the comm.

_-Shut it down, Dr. Selvig,- _he said, voice strained. Leah made a face. The Iron Man armor had certainly been beat up during the helicarrier fight—being almost-shredded in a giant engine tended to do that. She worried if he was having problems with the suit, before firmly reminding herself he was fine.

_-Okay,- _Tony muttered, and Leah got the feeling they were only hearing one side of a conversation. The rods returned to her hands, flipping into the air and back down, as she tensed.

_-Alrighty, then, there appears to be an unbreachable shield around the Tesseract,- _Tony said cheerfully. Leah would have rolled her eyes if the situation wasn't so serious.

"It is there?" she asked.

_-Yup, and so is Rock of Ages.-_

"Fuck," Leah said. Steve looked like he wanted to say something about her language, but he had to admit, this was a problem. They had hoped to beat him there, but apparently not. And if the shield around the Tesseract was unbreachable...well, they might have a very large problem very soon.

_-I'm going to talk to him,- _Stark announced suddenly.

"Fuck no," Leah retorted immediately, standing at the same time Rogers did.

_-Stalling him was the plan, remember.-_

"Then you stay in the damn suit," she snapped.

"Stark, stay in the armor, it's the only protection you've got," Steve argued.

_-I take offense to that,- _Tony said mildly, but they could already hear him slowing down.

"Leave a comm unit in, Stark," Rogers insisted. A snort came over the comms.

_-I didn't know you cared, Captain. But that's a negative. He'll just disable it anyway.- _The noise of him touching down was audible even over the comms.

"You better fucking survive this, Stark, or I will end you myself," Leah snarled. If they lost a teammate before the fighting even started, especially if it was their only flying operative that was definitely showing up, their odds dropped quite a ways. And...well, it was Tony. He was kind of the reasons she was here, instead of locked up in some SHIELD basement.

_-I'll be fine,- _Tony said, surprisingly soft, but strained. _-Here goes nothing.-_

There was a whirr, and a grinding noise, and then silence. Steve sat back stiffly, but Leah remained standing, flipping the rod over the back of a hand. She wished there was something to zap, right now, anything—she could feel energy and tension building up, crackling behind her fingernails. She snapped them anxiously, tiny arcs of lightning rolling away through the air, but it didn't help much.

There was nothing to do but wait.

Fortunately, it was barely fifteen minutes when Romanov announced in an oddly subdued voice they were within sight of the city. Leah stood quickly, marching over to stand behind them, staring out the cockpit window in mute horror.

The sky above Stark Tower was...ripped open. There was really no other way to describe the hole in the blue, cloudless sky, a tear that revealed inky blackness and stars. Tiny specks poured out of the hole, and there was a red flash visible, shooting towards the tear. A blue beam shot up from the very top roof of the Tower, originating where another speck and a larger bulk of a machine stood. No one spoke in the jet. It was bad, certainly—because even as the red speck they knew as Iron Man decimated those in his way, too, too many got past him. At least Tony was fine, if he was fighting.

"Stark, we're headed north-east," Natasha spat into the comms, Barton suddenly gunning the engine in a jolt that would have sent Leah off-balance if she wasn't gripping the backs of the chairs so hard her knuckles were white. This may not be her city exactly, but Jesus Christ...

How were they supposed to fight _this?_

_-What, did you stop for drive-through?- _Stark asked, irritated and strained.

"Yes, the McDonalds was delicious," Leah couldn't resist saying, voice dry as a bone. She needed _something _to break the silence. If things were quiet, it seemed just that much more hopeless.

_-Cute, kid. Swing by that park, Romanov, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you.-_

Leah and Steve exchanged a glance. Leah nodded, and they moved to stand by the exit door. Leah pulled out her rods, and lightning immediately began rolling down them, snapping and sparking in the jet. Steve pulled his cowl over his head, readying his iconic round shield on his arm. Leah could hear the noises of guns being loaded and readied, and she took a deep breath as the jet began to descend.

Well. Here went everything.

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**Just a quick note, there's a drawing of Leah's suit that I recently uploaded to my deviantart, I'm still ~hoppiholla over there :)**

**AND SUDDENLY WE WERE DROWNED IN FEELINGS. Don't worry, action comes back next chapter. Seriously, guys, if you follow or favorite the story, leave a review! It can be three words or three hundred, each and every one makes my day and gets me back to the keyboard. **

**Hugs and kisses for all my faithful reviewers,**

**Hoppi**


	10. Chapter 10

**I am so, so sorry. For the long wait, and...well. You'll see ;D**

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"Fucking alien bug things, think they own the place!" Leah cried gleefully as she stabbed her weapon, a foot-long pointed rod crackling with her own electricity, into the neck of the nearest Chitauri warrior. Her bloody hand lashed out, whipping to the side, and a bolt of lightning slashed across the three attackers behind her. Her hands, suit, and rods were stained with viscous, dark blue blood, she was surrounded by enemies, there were explosions everywhere, and it was _awesome._

Leah and the other three Avengers—God, it was _weird _thinking of herself as an Avenger, she would never get used to that—had arrived barely ten minutes ago, and the fighting had quickly geared up to full swing. Thor had appeared before they even got there, apparently, but still hadn't joined them, choosing to confront his brother and try (read as: fail) to get Loki to see reason. Captain America was fighting on his own, shield flashing red, white, and blue. Leah was fighting near the Black Widow, while Hawkeye was on top of a lamp post next to them, shooting down at anyone and remarkably well-hidden for someone sitting on a metal pole in the middle of a street. Iron Man was cheerfully leading packs of airborne Chitauri into the path of Barton's exploding arrows.

_-Leah, you've got incoming, four'o'clock,- _came Tony's computerized voice over the comms. Leah shouted an affirmative and threw both her hands out in front of her as she spun, lightning flashing across the space, and sending the four Chitauri to the ground.

_-Codenames only on the comm, Iron Man,- _came Steve's voice, and Tony's disbelieving snort matched Leah's rolling eyes.

_-She doesn't __**have**_ _one, Captain,- _he said drolly, and Leah could almost see him perk up. _-You know, kid, you really get one. Just so everybody knows you're not some kind of amateur.-_

"Dear God, Tony, you pick an odd—time to get all paternal on me," Leah said, slicing a Chitauri that got too close from navel to nose halfway through her sentence.

_-I am not paternal,- _Tony whined, but they all knew he didn't really put any force behind the words.

_-How about Volt?- _the billionaire suggested suddenly, after a few high-pitched whines matched the distant glare of a repulsor blast. Leah started to object automatically, then she actually considered it. Huh.

"It's not that bad," she said cautiously, taking the time to properly disembowel another warrior, blackish blood spattering over her arm for her trouble. God, this suit was going to be a _pain _to wash.

_-Fine, just—fine. She's Volt. Will you two __**focus**__?- _Cap said over the comm, and Leah grinned. She and Tony had been trading sarcastic comments at each other ever since the younger girl had joined the battle, and they could tell it was grating on Steve's nerves. Actually, she was pretty sure it was grating on _everyone's _nerves, they just didn't talk over comms as much. Ah well. It was Leah's coping mechanism.

And right now, she was trying to cope with, oh yes, an ongoing alien invasion. So they could deal with it. Also, she had a bitchin' codename now. _Secret agent Leah to the rescue, _she thought wryly._  
_

The fighting seemed...almost too easy. Not that it was _simple, _but Leah expected more from a global invasion by an alien race. All that had appeared so far were ground soldiers, high-tech flying chariot-bobsled-things streaming out of the portal and dropping more warriors off. These were just footsoldiers, and with the entire team working together—minus Banner, of course, he still hadn't shown—they were actually making some progress. The ground around Leah, Romanov, and Barton was littered with dead Chitauri, and the same went for the Captain. Stark was making quick work of the chariots, and the rest of them weren't under any real pressure yet. This wasn't exactly global invasion-scaled carnage—Leah was pretty sure a normal police officer could take down a Chitauri warrior easily enough—so what was Loki waiting for?

"Anybody else feel like this is the tip of the iceberg?" she muttered over the comms, taking a second to breathe between waves. She spun her rods in her hands, stilling when more aliens came running around the corner. Leah pointed them down the street, lightning flashing from the tips and hitting the beasts square in the chest.

_-Don't even say that,- _Clint snapped playfully over the comm. Leah had worked out pretty fast he was just as prone to sarcasm as she and Tony were in battle. _-You'll jinx it.-_

_-I don't know what world __**you're **__living in, kid, but obviously you're just __**breezing **__along...- _Tony said a second later. Leah rolled her eyes, her boot shooting out to kick a Chitauri back before Natasha cleanly fired a bullet through its skull.

"Come at me," Leah retorted flippantly, stabbing her way down the street towards the Captain and Thor. "I just think this is a little weak for something that's supposed to be a global invasion."

_-What, does this alien invasion not meet your __**standards? **__Is this one not good enough because it doesn't involve long speeches or long black coats or some shit?- _Tony inquired incredulously.

Leah only hummed, a tune that used to go with violins, and Tony snorted disbelievingly.

_-Coldplay? Really, kid?-_

"Shut it, it's good music," she muttered, ducking down so Natasha could silence a Chitauri warrior approaching from her side. "Wouldn't have expected you to know it, Stark."

_-Oh come on, I know more music than you times four.-_

"Bring it," Leah challenged. She heard Steve's groan over the comms, and flashed a brilliant smile.

_-He ran around, late at night, holding hands, and making light,- _Tony said instantly, the barest inflection of tune present in his voice. Leah smirked, taking a second to ram her hand into a Chitauri chestplate and shock the alien underneath. The leather-skinned thing jerked, keened in a weird, scratchy tone, and fell to the ground.

"The Black Keys," Leah said easily. "Ten Cent Pistol."

_-Alrighty then. I was shakin' at the knees, could I come again please, yeah the ladies were too kind,- _Tony shot back. Leah rolled her eyes.

"You are _way _too predictable. Thunderstruck, AC/DC."

_-If you pay the right price, your evening will be nice, or you can go and send me on my way?-_

"Cage the Elephant."

_-We've come a long long way together, through the good times, and the bad.-_

"Fatboy Slim, Praise You."

_-We're sick like animals we play pretend?-_

"First off, half a line is cheating. Second, Animal, Neon Trees. That was way too easy," Leah chastised, slashing a line of light across the street and making Natasha raise an eyebrow as lightning burst from her fingers.

_-Jesus, kid, you're like a fucking encyclopedia. Uh...neon lights are shining on me again, I walk the lonely streets in search—-_

"Black Sabbath, Dirty Woman," Leah interrupted calmly. "What was it I said about being predictable?"

_-Oh it is __**on, **__kid, I will think of something, I'm a genius, I—- _Silence.

"Iron Man? _Tony?_" Leah asked, worried suddenly as the billionaire cut off mid-sentence. The street was mostly quiet, Chitauri warriors dead or twitching into death on the ground around Leah and Natasha. Barton jumped down from the lamp pole, turned the other way, an absolutely blank look on his face with a touch of fear actually showing, which probably meant things were bad. If she had learned anything over the past absolutely crazy week or so, it was that SHIELD agents did not show fear. Leah swung around belatedly, and the blood drained from her face.

"What the actual fuck."

It was...well, fuck, it was a giant ass worm-turtle-space-terror-leviathan _thing, _flying headfirst out of the portal, long, thick body covered in plates with a very scary look on it's...face? It was long and grey, but the plates that covered it looked like tarnished gold. There were strange port-looking things on the sides, but it definitely wasn't a ship—she could see it's gaping mouth filled with teeth as it roared. Leah had no idea what the hell it was, and doubted anyone did. What she did know was that it _swam _through the air, and it was turning down to skim along the tops of buildings. Property damage, property damage, and more property damage.

_-Stark, are you seeing this?- _came Steve's slightly strangled voice over the comms.

_-Seeing, still working on believing,- _Tony replied, equally bland. There was an added layer of white noise to his comm line then, as if he was speeding up. _-Where's Banner?- _the man asked suddenly. _-Has he shown up yet?-_

"Banner?" Steve asked in surprise as Leah, Natasha, and Clint arrived. The soldier flicked a glance to them, checking for injuries or signs of fatigue, then turned back to the distant leviathan. God, it was really fucking massive.

Well, Leah _had _said it was a getting little tame.

_-Keep me posted. Jarvis, find me a soft spot.-_

A red blur went speeding past them, and lines of light lanced from Iron Man's palms to the sides of the beast. Leah turned her attention away, suddenly worried. The Chitauri warriors they could have handled, yeah, with the help of the police force and maybe the army, but this—

This was going to hurt people.

A _lot _of people.

"There's civilians trapped up there," Leah said suddenly, squinting up at the office buildings and skyscrapers, filled with innocent people, while keeping an eye on the hole in the sky. Rogers, Barton, and Romanov turned to her, Steve's eyes instantly following the track of her own, scanning the office buildings even as a pained look flashed over his face. He opened his mouth to speak when his eyes narrowed.

"Get down!"

The agents hit the deck and Leah instantly dropped to a knee, eyes turned upwards as the Captain threw himself to the side. There was a high-pitched whining noise, not unlike the noise Tony's repulsors made, and a line of blue bolts fired in quick succession down the street. Leah skidded out of the way, a bolt exploding where she had been a second ago. She snarled, and heard, oddly enough, a dark laugh in return. Her head snapped up and she caught the flash of a green cape disappearing around a corner.

"Loki," she growled. Barton and Steve's faces tensed.

"You're right about the civilians," Rogers agreed, grimacing. "They're fish in a barrel down there. We gotta keep them off the streets. This is about to get a whole lot messier."

Romanov squinted for a moment, then her face cleared and she almost-smiled. "We got this." Steve turned to her. "It's good, go," the redhead said easily, the click of a magazine sliding home audible over her words,

Steve looked at Leah for a second, who looked back calmly. He took a breath, and turned to the two agents. "You think you can hold them off?"

"Captain," Barton said with relish as Natasha smiled, hard and full of teeth. "It would be my genuine pleasure."

Rogers nodded and gestured sharply. "Volt, you're with me." Leah nodded sharply and the two took off.

Unfortunately, it was at that moment the squadron of Chitauri chariots returned, firing all the way down the street, directly at the running agents they had left behind took out two, but Leah was still having to throw bolts of lightning behind her. There were flames everywhere, and Leah could feel the beginning tingling in her fingers that meant she was using a _lot _of power.

It took them a while to find where the police were _finally _mobilizing, but when they got there, it was chaos. Officers were running every which way, which didn't help ease the sense of _panic _that Leah was getting from everyone. Now that she wasn't paying attention to killing things, she felt a vague sense of nausea when she saw the damage—holes in buildings, overturned cars, evidence of explosions _everywhere. _How had she not noticed it? New York may not be 'her city,' but it was still sickening to see the damage Loki and his army had caused.

As she and Steve approached a sergeant, she felt her hands clench into fists.

Steve approached the two officers, who startled slightly—_yeah, being suddenly confronted with Captain America might be a little startling—_and Leah checked around her. She spotted movement at the end of the street—four footsoldiers and what looked to be one of those flying chariots in the distance, speeding towards them.

"Cap," she said warningly. "We got incoming." He nodded sharply and turned to the officers.

"Then I'll make this quick. I need men in those buildings, there are people inside that could run into the line of fire. You take them through the basements," the Captain said, and yes, it was definitely the Captain who was speaking—a commanding officer giving orders and expecting them to be followed.

"Or through the subways, Captain," Leah said, mindful of using codenames only. "The trains won't be running now anyway. Subway tunnels or underground parking garages."

Steve considered it for a not even half a second before nodding, not even fazed even though Leah doubted parking garages had _existed _in his time. The fact that he instantly trusted her judgment would have given her the warm and fuzzies in any other situation. "Agreed. Through basements, subway tunnels, or the garages, you keep the civilians _off the streets._"

"Perimeter as far back as 39th street," Leah said, short and clipped as she watched the Chitauri approaching out of the corner of her eye. The two officers were watching in bemused awe as the two newcomers snapped out orders, and Steve seemed to be preoccupied and wasn't noticing the nearing hostiles. "Cap—"

"Why the hell should I take orders from you?" the sergeant cut in derisively, and just as Steve frowned and opened his mouth to reply, Leah shouted out a warning.

The soldier spun around instantly, shield flying and taking out one of the approaching Chitauri right then and there. Leah's hands flew out, tracking the movement of the incoming chariot and when she wrenched her fingers to the side, it flipped mid-air and went crashing upside-down into the ground, wiring instantly responding to her command and grinding the Chitauri pilot underneath it. She was exceedingly grateful that even though they were from space, the Chitauri still used a manipulatable kind of energy. Steve finished off two with a lightning-fast back and forth move with his shield, and Leah drove her rod into the chest of the last one. The two Avengers turned back to the officers, who stood frozen for another second before moving off. As the sergeant left, Leah saw him pull his radio to his mouth and shout, "We need guys in the buildings, take the civilians out underground, keep them off the streets..."

Leah smirked and turned back to the Captain. He gave her a small, tight answering smile in return before he jerked his head and they went running back through the streets, returning to Barton and Romanov.

As far as she could tell, Stark was still dealing with the leviathan, the glare of repulsor blasts still flashing in the distance and around buildings. The rest of the worm things were mostly uncontained, wreaking havoc on buildings and streets alike, and although it wasn't exactly bodies-piled-in-the-streets level yet, Leah resolutely turned her thoughts from the body count. Thor was incoming—she could see the red flash of his cape in the distance, and the white lightning that heralded his batles. Hawkeye and the Widow were doing admirably, the street around them littered with bodies when the Captain and Volt rejoined them.

Romanov had adapted quickly to one of the Chitauri weapons, a long spear with a wickedly glowing edge that appeared to fire off more of the strange energy bolts. Barton still appeared to have a full quiver, despite the number of bodies with arrows sticking out of them. Leah watched for a split second as Romanov fired the spear into a warrior's chest, Barton turned the other way, then picked her taret with a grim smile.

The girl vaulted and slid along the roof of a car, managing to slide right onto a Chitauri's back. She locked her legs around its torso, then drove her knives deep into either side of its neck. Bright yellow energy crackled over its body, conducted by its metallic armor, and the alien sagged. Leah's boots hit the ground as she disengaged before she widened her stance and heaved, body sliding off the ends of her weapons at the end of her swing and sending it into an approaching enemy. She spun back around, roundhouse kicking a Chitauri across the jaw and stabbing it with a lightning-charged rod for good measure. Romanov caught her eye across the ruined street, and the two women shared a smirk.

There was a crack, and Leah registered a spike in energy. A bolt of blue-white lightning speared an approaching Chitauri, and there was a heavy impact as Thor arrived. There was a small spot of red on one side of his armor, and Leah's eyes narrowed. Chitauri didn't have weapons nearly that exact, but exactly how messed up was Loki if he stabbed his own _brother?_

The Captain slid up to them then, and there was a brief lull in the battle. Leah panted slightly, the exertion of hours catching up to her. The two agents were breathing hard as well, but evenly, and Steve was...well, Steve was Steve. Super soldier and all that.

"What's the story upstairs?" he asked evenly, taking the reappearance of Thor in stride, holding his shield easily at his size. Thor huffed a bit, but answered.

"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable," the god said reluctantly, eyes watching the blue beam firing into the sky from the top of Stark Tower.

_-Thor's right, we gotta deal with these guys,- _Iron Man put in suddenly over the comm, and Leah's heart sank. Somehow, she didn't think it was comic book style, where the barriers are never really impenetrable. Pure energy, Tony had said. Even Leah couldn't absorb that kind of energy without dying.

Romanov took a breath, her face remaining blank. "How do we do this?" she asked steadily.

Rogers took a breath, studying the skies. "As a team," he said. It sounded more like a promise.

"I have unfinished business with Loki," Thor warned.

"Yeah? Get in line." That was Clint, fingering the blade of an arrow with a black look on his face. Leah snorted grimly. Yeah, she'd like a chat with the god of mischief herself.

"Save it," Rogers said sternly. "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us, and that's exactly what we need," he continued, ignoring the glare from Barton. "Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, he's gonna need us to—"

"Banner!" Leah interrupted suddenly, grinning widely.

Steve turned to her, irritated, but lo and behold, Bruce Banner had arrived. On a scooter. A scooter that looked about fifty years old.

"Well, you look like shit," Leah said cheerfully. He did. His clothes were too big and ill-fitting, his hair was mussed, and there were deep bags under his eyes. The doctor was covered in dust, and his transport was...less than glorious.

Banner smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Nah, you fell thirty thousand feet as a giant green ogre, I'll forgive you," Leah said breezily. Steve looked at her oddly, and Banner's smile fell from his face as he looked around.

"So, this all seems...horrible," the dark-haired man said finally, abandoning the scooter against a pile of rubble.

"I've seen worse," Romanov said, almost rueful tones under the blank statement. Banner's face turned apologetic.

"Sorry."

"No, we could—use a little worse," the agent said, as close to friendly as she ever got.

"Iron Man, look who came to play," Leah said into her earpiece, grinning.

_-Banner?- _Tony responded, and Leah could have sworn he sounded just as happy as she was.

"Just like you said," Steve said, still looking between Bruce and Leah oddly.

_-Then tell him to suit up_—-

"I don't like the sound of that," Leah muttered.

-—_I'm bringing the party to you.-_

Leah looked up. Her eyes widened, and she groaned.

"I _hate _you, Stark."

She only got a grim chuckle in response. Iron Man came tearing around a corner at full blast, followed closely by the leviathan. The beast looked even more massive close up, all gnashing teeth and golden armor. Stark dipped down low, and the creature skated the ground, long fins brushing the buildings on either side and causing a fall of dust wherever they touched. Destruction followed in its wake, rubble falling to the streets from the tops of building marking its path. In short, it was pretty fucking terrifying. Leah was suddenly extremely, _extremely _grateful they had gotten all the civilians out that they could. And even then, it still might not be enough.

"I don't see how that's a party," Romanov said, brow furrowed and face tense. She cocked her guns surreptitiously. A short burst of slightly hysterical laughter escaped Leah's lips.

_Welp, we are well and truly fucked. _

"I vote Stark handles this one," Leah said loudly, but her hands tightened around her rods and lightning rolled down the metal, sparking off her hands as well. It was going to take a _lot _to bring that monster down.

_-Nice try, kiddo.-_

"Doctor Banner," Steve said suddenly, face tense but determined. He turned to the doctor, and his face twisted into a wry expression. "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

Banner gave a small, rueful smile. He turned, walking towards the approaching leviathan. The creature roared, sending reverberations through Leah's bones, as it flew ever closer to the grouped Avengers.

"That's my secret, Cap," he tossed over his shoulder. He stopped, and turned back to where they were watching curiously. Banner took a deep breath.

"I'm always angry."

And then the Hulk joined the show.

Banner twisted, turning back to the leviathan, fist clenched and poised to punch. But as he turned, his skin rippled, turning electric green. Bones realigned and muscles bulged, tearing through his shirt and turning his pants into tattered shorts. Banner grew, and grew, until he became everyone's favorite nine-foot-tall green behemoth. The Hulk growled once, and slammed his enormous fist straight into the leviathan's teeth.

A keening filled the air, and, to Leah's _immense _surprise, the leviathan just...stopped. The Hulk held his ground, slowly being driven back all of a foot, before the forward momentum of the creature forced it upwards. It's tail curled into the air, almost flipping _over _the gamma beast. Finally, though, the plated tail crashed to the ground, tipping like a felled tree and landing with a bone-shaking thud. The Hulk roared.

"Hulk is my favorite," Leah announced. The others looked at her like she was crazy, but hey—who ever said she had a sense of self-preservation?

"I'm hurt, kid," said an amused, synthesized voice, and Leah turned, grinning. Iron Man was hovering about twenty feet off the ground, faceplate turned downwards to stare at her. The Avengers were grouped together, standing in a loose circle, and Leah opened her mouth to snark back when her face went pale and her eyes widened, staring beyond Iron Man's red figure.

"Fucking jackrabbits on a rolling assturd," she said quietly, eyes fixed on the portal above.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of Chitauri chariots were pouring out of the portal, bolts flying everywhere as they attacked randomly. It was like a cloud of flies, blanketing the city and raining down destruction. Dozens of leviathans accompanied them, jagged maws opened wide as they dropped off even more soldiers and swam through the streets. The portal just continously poured out death and destruction—and if it had taken the Hulk to kill just one leviathan, how were they supposed to take care of fifty?

As one, the Avengers tightened their circle, facing outwards around them. Iron Man touched down in a defensive stance, and all around the circle, weapons were ready. Volt, for her part, just tightened her grip on her knives, and electricity started rolling off of her in waves.

"Call it, Captain," Stark said, subdued even under the mechanic tone of the suit. Leah turned to Steve, face grim.

Rogers took a breath, scanned their faces quickly, and nodded slightly. "Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, we're on containment. Barton, I want you on that roof—" he pointed, "—eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays." Barton nodded sharply, rolling an arrow between his fingers. "Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?" Barton asked, turning to Stark. Tony jerked his head in half a nod, walking towards Barton and clenching a hand around the strap of the archer's quiver.

"Right. Better clench up, Legolas," were the billionaire's parting words. Leah snorted as Iron Man lifted off straight into the air, Hawkeye under his arm. Rogers watched them for a second, then turned to Thor.

"Thor, you gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow 'em down. You got the lightning, light the bastards up." The demigod bowed his head. He swung Mjolnir, whirring it over his head in a circle before taking off into the air, red cape streaming behind him. Leah considered briefly how useful it would be to have the ability to fly. Ah well. Rogers was certainly living up to his namesake.

The Captain turned to Leah and the Widow. "You two and me, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting down low."

Leah grinned, and there were too many teeth in it, a hard, sharp smile, and she said, "Captain, I'd love to."

The fighting was...well, she was going to be honest. It was really fucking exhausting. The Chitauri just kept coming, and coming, and coming, an endless wave of warriors to punch, kick, stab, and electrocute. Leah resolutely moved through the streets, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, but she hadn't had this kind of workout in months. All too often she had to use a kind of 'blowout' move, lightning filling the street, just so she could get a breather. Thor was doing well with his white lightning, using the Chrysler building as a lightning rod and turning back a couple of leviathans all on his own. Hulk was a mean green smashing machine, but he took out almost as much property as he did Chitauri. Stark was probably having the time of his life, spinning out chariots into lineups for Hawkeye. Volt and the Captain were fighting fairly close, near Grand Central, and the Widow kept appearing and disappearing just in time to finish off warriors. Leah had managed to take down a leviathan herself, what with Stark distracting it she had quite simply driven her rod into its eye and given it the biggest shock she could. She was pretty proud of herself for that one, even if she had had to just stand still for about twenty seconds and get her breath back. She could feel full-on exhaustion coming—she had never used her power so much in one sitting. But she was determined to finish this one—the fate of the world might very literally depend on it.

Iron Man shot past, a trail of chariots following him as Barton advised finding a tight corner. Leah obligingly threw her hand out and ripped one of the chariots from the sky, sending the Chitauri to the ground head-first. Stark gave her a jaunty salute before tearing off around a corner, sending more chariots into a building.

There was a short break then, the Captain and Widow breathing hard. Leah knew she couldn't keep this up much longer, when her eyes passed over the chariot she had downed. It was snapped in half, wires sparking. Her eyebrows raised and, slowly, she placed her hand in among the severed wires.

_Instant _relief. It was like a shot of adrenaline, filling her veins with energy. Her hand clenched over the wires, and Leah drew out as much energy as she could. It wasn't like electricity—it felt too different from what she got from electronics. This was more primal, more raw, something far, far older than her. It felt, she realized, like Loki's staff.

_So that's what the Tesseract would feel like._

And Leah found herself...wanting that. Wanting to feel that kind of power, endlessly, a thousand times stronger. Suddenly, she shook herself, and yanked her hand back out of the wiring. She felt refreshed, even if she knew it was false energy. It didn't matter—she had to make due with what she could get.

"Captain," Romanov huffed. "None of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal."

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it," Rogers argued, leaning back against a downed car. Leah hummed, thinking. The power around the portal generator came from the Tesseract. To break that kind of energy, they needed the same type. Obviously the chariots ran on some kind of Tesseract-like energy, probably coming from their home planet. But there wasn't enough there, and it wasn't concentrated enough. They needed a weapon that ran on Tesseract-type power, and enough in a small enough space to work. Something like...

Like Loki's staff.

"Maybe it's not about guns," Leah said suddenly. Romanov and Steve turned to her, eyebrows raised. Leah drew her gaze downwards from where she had been staring at the generator. She raised a hand and wiggled her fingers. "Energy," she said simply.

Steve's face cleared and he turned to look at the top of Stark Tower. "You wanna get up there, you're gonna need a ride."

"I have a ride," Leah said gleefully, stepping backwards and lifting her hands. She narrowed her eyes, watching an approaching squadron of Chitauri chariots. At the last second, she _pulled, _flipping over a chariot and forcing the pilot and the gunner on the back out. They were caught by chains around their ankles, a safety measure, but Leah merely frowned and gave a hard yank up and down, snapping the chains and sending the beasts headfirst into the pavement. They didn't get back up. Leah moved her hands around eachother gracefully, and the chariot came to stop, right-side-up, at Leah's side.

Romanov actually smiled at her, while the Captain just stared. Leah grinned back and mounted the chariot, flexing her fingers on the handlebars. She could manipulate this kind of energy, obviously, but she felt her way through the wiring so she might be able to steer normally—conserve energy and all that.

Black Widow cocked her head. "You might need support up there," she said experimentally.

Leah smiled. "Don't bullshit me, you want to ride a flying alien motorcycle as much as the rest of us," she said, but she used a joking tone and it wasn't a no, so Natasha smiled viciously. She turned to Steve and asked, "Can I get a boost?"

Leah saluted, and said "I'll meet you up top, Widow!"

And then she took off.

Fuck, this was _brilliant. _The chariot was like a surfboard combined with a motorcyle that _flew, _responding to both the handlebars and leaning to the side. Plus, it shot fucking _energy bolts. _It was the best thing _ever._ Leah pulled a hard turn around a corner, leaning almost all the way over the edge and simultaneously twisting on the handlebars, and she avoided hitting Grand Central Station by a hair. She laughed with the sheer thrill of it, twisting through the streets of New York on an alien hovercraft. Who would've thought.

"I have _got _to get me one of these!" she cried, banking hard and unleashing a volley of fire on an oblivious squadron of Chitauri. The aliens seemed to ignore her automatically if they didn't look too close, and it presented some very interesting opportunities.

"That can be arranged," a dry voice said, and Leah's head whipped around to see Iron Man flying alongside her.

"Well, now you know what I want for my birthday," she shot back, before pushing down on the handlebars. The chariot dove, Leah's feet momentarily going on tiptoe and just barely staying on the metal. She skimmed the street, mowing down Chitauri warriors with both firepower and the craft itself before she swerved upwards again, laughing her head off. Tony's answering chuckle came over the comm before he sped off towards Steve.

She made one full circuit of the Tower before another chariot pulled up next to her. Leah breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a black suit and red hair, sitting on a dead Chitauri pilot's shoulders. "Agent Romanov," she said sedately, blasting off a Chitauri's head with ease.

"We have a job to do, Volt," the assassin replied, amused, and Leah grinned sheepishly. Romanov sped ahead, but Leah hung back, letting some space remain between them. Barton was right—these things really couldn't turn all that well, so it made sense to leave a gap. It would _really _put a damper on things if they died in some freak crash. Somewhere far below them, Hulk and Thor were beating the shit out of one of the leviathans. Stark and the Captain were fighting side by side, and Barton was picking off more Chitauri than should be humanly possible with a bow and and Volt sped along, slowly climbing upwards and heading for Stark Tower.

There was a whining noise in Leah's ears then, and she whipped around. Another chariot was fast approaching, firing constantly at Natasha. Leah squinted, and then she saw it. A flash of gold and the stream of a green cape—Loki.

"Widow! On your six!" she yelled, and Romanov's head turned. Her chariot peeled off to the side suddenly, Loki following after, and Leah got the message—the Black Widow would keep Loki distracted, Volt had to go after the generator. Leah set her jaw, and veered upwards.

She had work to do.

She wove around Chitauri chariots and leviathans, shooting what she could but not slowing down. She sped steadily upwards, getting ever closer to the top of Stark Tower—and the portal. At this angle, she could see _through _it, a black expanse with few stars, and that sight made her go cold. Leah averted her gaze, and she was just about there, just skating along the penthouse floors—

_Wham. _Something impacted heavily with her side, and the handlebars slipped out of her grasp. She tried to grab at them, but they were just inches beyond her fingers. With a cry, she fell out of the chariot just over Stark's penthouse, falling through an already-shattered window at an angle, landing heavily on her side and rolling for a few feet. While her suit and her gloves protected her from the glass shards that littered the ground, her ribs didn't fare so well. Her entire left side was one huge hurt, and she was fairly certain she had cracked some ribs. It felt like there was a cut on her forehead, just next to her temple, and one across her cheekbone, judging by the warm wetness trickling slowly into her brow. Hopefully, there wouldn't be too much blood. But she hadn't broken any other bones—thank God for higher-than-average resilience—and had avoided damaging her wrist.

But what had hit her?

Groaning, Leah levered herself to her hands and knees in the middle of Tony's penthouse. It was...less than pristine, piles of rubble fallen in and glass everywhere. Leah put a hand to her ribs, trying not to think about how she couldn't really draw a deep breath, and looked up.

Instantly, she froze.

Loki was standing, armor, helmet, staff and all, just inside the shattered window. He was smirking, as always, green eyes flashing and cruel. Leah tensed as he cocked his head, but he wasn't instantly shooting blue light at her or trying to take over her mind, so.

"I did not think it would be so easy to unseat you, as well as you have taken to use of the shvik," he said, tone an interesting mix of curious and disdainful. Leah raised an eyebrow at the strange word.

"That's the Chitauri name for those chariots, I assume?" she asked, both honestly curious and attempting to stall. As she spoke, she feigned grabbing at her upper arm in pain, but in truth, she silently flicked open one of the round pouches and placed a finger on the d-cell battery within. She had already done it several times over the course of the battle, and this was the last d-cell she had left. Power started to work its way back into her—she was charging up for a tough fight.

"Yes," Loki said, waving a hand. "But it's of no matter."

"Yes it is," Leah argued quickly, wincing when her left set ribs yelled protest at the sudden breath. She took a much smaller one. "I'd like to be educated about our new overlords," she finished sarcastically. Loki rolled his eyes and smirked.

"But you are so certain you will defeat them," he said, condescension in every line of his body. Leah snorted. Internally though, she was having a minor freakout. Why was he talking so much to her? By all rights, he should have blasted her out the window by now, and she would have no way to stop him. So what was the debate for?

"No, actually—I don't think we will defeat the Chitauri. Not now, and not all of them, anyway," Leah said instead, shrugging. Then her face went hard, and her lips curled in a vindictive smile. "But I do think we'll defeat _you_."

Loki's face hardened in return, sharp eyes tightening and...something flashing over his face for a second. There was silence for a moment, and then his face smoothed. His eyes were curious, though, and his words matched.

"You could have been my ally," he said, eyes narrowed and tone interested. "If I remember correctly, you, in fact, accepted." His head turned to the side slightly, eyes still fixed on her. "Why did you rebel?"

Leah's smile was brittle. "See, that's the thing. _'Rebel.' _You don't know me, so I'll let you in on a little secret. That's what I _do._" She stepped slowky closer, hands in fists at her sides and eyes like lasers. "You come here, threaten to take away my freedom, to make us _all _your slaves, so yeah. I am going to _rebel._" She finished on a snarl, half a foot away and glaring daggers at the taller man, eyes pissed-off and dangerous. Loki raised his black eyebrows and looking at her, considering.

"Yes, freedom is something that has been taken from you in the past," he mused, and Leah didn't move a muscle. She just went very, very cold.

"You know _nothing _of the value of freedom," she hissed, and Loki didn't recoil, but it was a near thing. He smirked at her, eyes flickering blue. Wait..._blue?_

"You cannot escape your fate," he said quietly, but it didn't sound like a taunt. Leah turned her attention from his eyes and her face twisted. That didn't sound like a conquering god—that sounded...broken.

"You can _always _change the future," she said simply, and it wasn't sarcastic or vicious or _anything_—it was the truth. Loki truly did recoil, then, his look saying _and what a foolish mortal you are. _She could just hear it. Suddenly, then, his eyes burned blue—electric and cold.

_Tesseract blue._

"Not today," the god sneered, and raised his staff. Leah's eyes widened, and her head cleared of any blue-related thoughts, leaving one simple thought behind:

_I think I'm fucked__**.**_

Leah dodged the first blue bolt of energy, diving to the side and lashing out a hand of her own, a lightning bolt cracking towards the god. Loki deflected it with the shaft of the sceptre, spinning with the motion to slash through the air in front of him. Leah felt her legs swept out from under her, and landed with a strangled cry on her tailbone. Pain flared, sharp for all of two seconds, but it was enough. Her senses went on high alert, lightning thrumming through her. Leah shot forward from the ground, rods flashing, and it was all Loki could do to fend off her snake-strike quick attacks. Clangs filled the air as Loki used his sceptre like a quarterstaff, hands spread apart and holding it steady. Try as she might, Leah couldn't break past. Every time she tried to feint or get around the staff, it seemed like another damn hand would pop out of nowhere. Eventually, she gave up, snarling, and shoved the knives into their sheathes in one fluid movement. Now she was just going for contact, punching, kicking, grabbing, electricity rolling off of her and bleeding into the air, making it smell like ozone. Loki winced, once, twice, five times as she grabbed some part of his armor or a finger, until finally his face twisted and he disappeared in flash of gold light.

Leah whipped around, breathing hard and feeling the tingle of magic in her palms, not to mention the throbbing on her forehead. She had managed to push Loki out onto the balcony, but he was nowhere to be seen. She turned back out to look over the city, but a flash of blue caught her eye. She turned just in time for a bright blue ball of energy to hit her square in the chest.

Leah flew back, skidding along the ground on her back. She was already close to the end—her hands flew out in a panic, trying to stop her momentum carrying her over the edge, and they just barely caught on a heavy urn. She halted about a foot from the edge of the balcony, the glass barrier long gone. Breathing heavily, she managed to pull herself to her feet, coughing and rubbing her back.

She made a strangled noise as fingers closed around her throat, shoving her back against the huge urn, barely six inches away from open space. Leah choked, fingers sparking as they tried to pull the long-fingered hand away.

Loki was up close and personal, eyes still that electric blue as he sneered. Her own blue-green eyes widened as he raised the golden blade of the staff, light mirroring the blue of his eyes. The light began to bleed down to the tip, pooling into a point there and making a sound almost like flowing water.

_No. **NO. **No, no, no, never again, never again, **never...**_

"You cannot escape destiny," the god whispered savagely. The tip inched closer, Loki drawing it out for his own fucking amusement, and in that second, Leah was all emotion. Fear, fucking _terror, _nonononono not again never no one would own her _never_

But what options did she have? She couldn't fight back, and in a few moments, she wouldn't _want _to. There wouldn't be anything of herself _left, _and she would fight for _Loki—_fight to kill innocent people and some of the only friends she had ever had. Choice. Freedom. She needed _herself. _She had killed the last people who tried to make her theirs, savagely and with blood on her hands, but she _couldn't kill Loki. _So she made a decision.

Looking into Loki's eyes, face sincere and sad and angry a tiny bit terrified, Leah merely said, "Always."

And threw herself off the edge of Stark Tower.

* * *

**EHEHEHEHE. CLIFFHANGERS FOR ALL. Don't worry though! Leah's story isn't over yet ;)**

**Second: WOW CRAP. THAT TOOK ME LIKE A MONTH. I am so, so, **_**SO **_**sorry! I really didn't mean for it to take that long. I just couldn't find a good enough script, then I had to wait for it to ****update, and...sorry. Sorry sorry sorry. All the remaining readers get super-kudos from me. This chapter **_**was **_**super fun to write, though. **

**Unfortunately, a period of slow chapters is in my future. School starts...well, tomorrow, so that's probably going to take up a lot of my time for a while. Sorry! **

**Remember, reviews make the world go round ;D**

**-Hoppi**


	11. Chapter 11

**All I have to say at the start: guys? Not cool. Not cool at all.****  
**XXXXX**  
**The comm was roaring in Steve Roger's ear, four different voices yelling their confusion and alarm. Iron Man was swearing up a storm, demanding information and eyes on target and generally cursing Loki up, down, and sideways, Hawkeye was telling him to shut up and what the hell was happening up top, Widow was just bursts of static, and Thor was also demanding to know what the heck was going on. Hulk was just a distant roar in the background, blending in with the sounds of the invasion.****

All Steve knew for sure was that Leah and Natasha had been heading up top when there was a green explosion, and one of the chariots had fallen, unmanned, to the ground next to Stark Tower. Loki had disappeared into the penthouse of the skyscraper shortly after. Everyone was on the ground except for Natasha and Stark, and as long as Romanov's comm was offline, they couldn't get any solid info. Stark couldn't get up there himself as he had to draw a pack of Chitauri off of an office building, and so they really had no idea what had just happened on Stark Tower. ****

_-Can anybody even __**see **__what the fuck is happening up there?- _Iron Man snapped, voice frustrated and angry. ****

Steve ran, trying to get a clear line of sight on the top of Stark Tower. He wove between cars and rubble, smashing Chitauri warriors aside with his shield with just the right amount of force**—**not too tiring, but it still kept the aliens down. He jumped over a fallen set of streetlights and skidded around a corner, and finally, _finally _he had a clear view of the Tower.****

Needless to say, it wasn't looking too good. Chunks had been taken out of it, most of the glass in the windows was shattered, and where it had previously said 'STARK' all that remained was a forlorn 'A.' The blue beam of light was still slicing a hole in the sky, eerie sea-colored portal going strong. Chitauri chariots buzzed around it like a swarm of angry bees, squadrons peeling off regularly to terrorize the streets below. Leviathans were just as terrifying as they had been at the start of the battle, twisting around skyscrapers and moving on, but they, at least, were coming with decreasing frequency. ****

But all that wasn't what made Steve's eyes narrow and zero in on the top of the tower. No, he scrutinized the balcony up top because he saw something that made his heart pound**—**intermittent flashes of yellow light and blue bolts fading into nothingness when they shot off the edge of the tower. They were getting brighter and brighter, and Steve felt a sick sense of dread.****

**"**Hawkeye," he said slowly. "You got eyes on our girl?"****

There was a long pause. _-I do now,- _came the wary tone eventually. _-I'm in position, I've got eyes on target...Loki's on top of Stark Tower_**—**_-_****

_-Then shoot him,- _Stark snapped, the noises of his repulsors in the background.****

_- _**—**_and Le_**—**_Volt is with him,- _Clint finished, the dread Steve was feeling in the back of his mind firmly in the marksman's voice.****

**"**...is she turned?" Steve asked eventually, eyes locked onto the top of the tower, where there was an almighty flash of yellow, and no answering blast of blue. ****

_-No,- _Hawkeye said immediately. _-No, she_**—**_she's still fighting. SHIT_**—**_- _Clint suddenly went silent.****

**"**What happened?" Steve demanded, hand clenching around the strap of his shield. His entire body was tense, tips of his fingers trembling and he found his feet moving forward at a determined march before he even knew what was happening. He squinted, trying to get a better look at what was happening on top of Stark Tower, but he didn't have the angle Clint did.****

_-He's got her by the throat,- _came Barton's tense voice. _-Oh, fuck, he has the staff_**—**_-_****

Yeah, Steve was running now. He was blocks and blocks away, a lucky break in the buildings the only reason he could see at all. He was too far away, and too slow, and the Tower was too tall for him to be able to do anything, but maybe he'd be able to contain her**—******

_-LEAH!-_****

Steve flinched as the comm unit in his ear roared, but that wasn't Clint's voice**—**that was all Stark, angry and shocked and just plain _scared. _The Captain skidded to a stop, boots throwing up dust as he froze solid, staring up at Stark Tower because oh, God, _Leah. _****

There was a blinding flash of yellow light, and when the spots cleared from Steve's vision, there was a dark form plummeting off the edge of Stark Tower, barely-visible arms and legs flailing as she twisted. The form was almost indistinguishable from the concrete of the tower from this distance, but the sudden, snapping threads twisting around it were a signature. Steve's heart was in his throat, mouth hanging open.****

**"**STARK, GET HER NOW!" he shouted, fear in every line of his body. ****

_-I can't!- _came the responding roar from the billionaire, and there was something terrifying in his voice. _-I'm pinned down, too far_**—**_oh, fuck, __**someone grab her!**__-_****

And even as Steve heard the words, he knew they'd be too late. The small figure, twisting in the air, was far too close to the ground for even Tony to save, until it fell out of sight, blocked by a building.****

There was silence on the comms. Dead silence. Steve didn't move a muscle, and he'd be surprised if anyone else was still fighting. They had already lost someone. A teammate was dead, fallen off a tower, and they hadn't even finished this war yet, one way or another. He hadn't known Leah that well-he certainly wasn't as close to her as Stark or Banner-but she had seemed like a good kid. All Steve could think of was another teammate, another _friend _of his, falling off a train into a long, long stretch of snow. ****

He was snapped back into the present by an explosion behind him, nearly knocking him off his feet and definitely giving him a wakeup call. Steve spun, bringing up his shield and blinking away the the blurriness in his eyes. ****

They would mourn later. Now, they would avenge her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**Okay, guys. We're going to have ourselves a little talk. **

**This talk is about reviewing respectfully.**

**This is one of the shortest chapters I have ever posted to any story in my entire life. Do you know why? Because I got so many reviews saying 'Dude, not cool' or 'Wow, really?' I'm going to be perfectly frank. You don't know what's been happening with my life outside of the internet. I could offer the usual excuses here, but I know people are going to be fed up with me no matter what, so, I won't. **

**Guys. Being rude is not going to get me to write faster. In fact, it will only make me _more _irritated and _less _likely to write. I've put up with slightly off-color reviews in the past because it was one out of ten, but 80% of the reviews I got for Chapter 10 and the Chapter 11 update? 'OMG WRITE FASTER HOW DARE U LEAVE US HANGING.' I did get some nice reviews, and thank you all very much for that,but overall?**

**Not. Cool.**

**So this is me putting my foot down. If I get reviews complaining about how short the chapter is? _THE STORY IS DONE_. I mean it. I will stop writing, post a final chapter saying how and why the story was canceled, and that will be that. You may call me childish for this, but I am being no more childish than the people complaining about the lack of a chapter. **

**I am sorry for not posting Chapter 11 when I said I would. But that in no way excuses this behavior. Hence, an ultimatum.**

**Thank you for taking the time to read this. And, as always: thank you to the _pleasant _reviewers.**

**-Hoppiholla**


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